The entire town stretched from one end of the Boring Highway to the other. Starting at the Not-So-Boring Bar and Grill the street weaved to an end at the Clatsop Hotel. It was beyond belief that a town could be named Boring. Yet, the Oregon territory seemed to match this namesake quite well so far.
Gray clouds in the night sky pelted the small town with heavy rain, and never seemed to stop. Inhaling the scent of fresh pine and water Silas Reed trudged through the muddy thoroughfare heading toward the hotel. Peering down the road the tall man could barely make out the bright lights of his destination flickering against the nightly downpour. He struggled to even walk to the hotel against the mud and biting cold deluge on the top of his hood.
By the time he reached the hotel's porch his clothes were soaked. A lone NCR trooper stood sentinel at the entrance. Dragging on a cigarette, the soldier's eyes strayed upward to watch Silas remove his hood revealing short dark hair.
"Sergeant." Said the trooper dutifully as Silas approached, shaking his soaking attire in the vain attempt to dry.
Squinting down at the fair skinned soldier through the built up crud in his eyes Sergeant Silas Reed muttered the word, "Name?" through his chattering teeth.
The young man gave a lazy salute as he replied, "Private Tim Gibson, Sir."
Silas only responded with a quick nod. The boy was young that's for sure. Judging by the peach fuzz coming from his chin the sergeant could only guess that the boy was somewhere around nineteen.
He doubted that Gibson had been enlisted for very long. Most of the lower ranked troopers were basically civilians who, for the most part, were quickly shoved into service for this mission. Mostly, they were just locals who knew little in the ways of military conduct; kids, who were rushed through a month of boot camp and training because the captains running this thing figured they'd be useful.
Silas leaned on the wall next to Gibson and fished out one of his own cigarettes. They sat smoking in silence for a few seconds until Silas mumbled, "These regulation ponchos are such a joke. They don't hold against these rains at all."
Gibson gave a quick scoff, "I hear you, Sir. I heard that when Cap'n Flynn's group arrived earlier near all of 'em came in with tattered leather where their raincoats should'a been."
Silas shook his head. Captain Flynn's group could only have been marching a week or so from Klamath. He could only hope they'd be able to replace these meagre raincoats before setting out from here. With a slight grimace he continued the conversation, "So why'd they pick you for this, Gibson?"
With a slight exhale of smoke from his nostrils Gibson started, "Well, me and my pa were loggers up here in the northern territory. Ever since the NCR's been reaching further north we've been capitalizing well on the timber up here." The boy gave a slight pause of contemplation before continuing. "Anyways, Captain Maxwell was asking around the local villages for young men who knew areas around the northern ends of the territory and beyond. And well, figured I fit the bill."
"Sounds like you came to the decision a bit quick there."
"Well Sergeant, between you and me, I was ready for some adventure. Get away from here for a few years, forge my own path, and come back with some money, land and a helluva tale. I'm ready to see what's out there."
Silas admired the boy's attitude but he himself experienced enough to be beyond such optimism. "I'm sure we'll see it, Gibson." He replied taking the last puff of his cigarette before flicking it into the street. "Are the other sergeants in the hotel already?"
"Yes sir. I think they're all still at their table probably waitin' on you."
He ended the conversation with a quick nod and salute to Gibson before entering the hotel. The bright, sudden light dizzied him. Wiping his mud crusted boots against the doormat he began to survey the room.
The lobby had been fashioned into a makeshift tavern with tables sprawled past a crooked bar. The owner was a lanky, wisp of a man who clearly hadn't seen this much business in years; he scurried about the bustling room, table to table, filling the tankards of the near thirty NCR troops that had taken up residence here. It wasn't long before Silas' attention was caught by Sergeant Aguilar waving him toward a table. Weaving his way through the din of soldier's conversations Silas reached the round, splintery hunk of wood the sergeants used for a table.
The three other sergeants hushed their light conversation as Silas joined them. Sitting down he swiveled his head around the table to assess who he sat with. To his left sat Staff Sergeant Ryan Aguilar; a tan skinned man of his late twenties whose face looked like it had been carved out of a tree. At his right sat the fair skinned, Master Sergeant Isaac Maddux, a spectacled man who looked more suitable to be an office executive than soldier. Lastly, across from him sat a pale looking woman he did not know. She had a stern face with auburn hair loosely pulled back into a ponytail.
"Did you come in with Captain Flynn this afternoon?" he said loud enough to be heard by the woman in front him.
With a quick nod she crumpled her face into a grimace. "Yeah, ten of us got in a few hours ago. The rain kicked our asses something fierce coming up here from Klamath." She said just barely audible enough to hear.
Silas lightly bit his tongue at the thought of what still needed to be prepared to battle this weather. He let these worries settle in his head before regaining his social graces. He started talking, "Well I assume Aguilar and Maddux have introduced themselves, I'm First Sergeant Silas Reed. Who are you?"
"Sergeant First Class Sarah Medford, Sir. I was stationed at Camp Crater in Ashland before I was picked up for this."
Silas opened his mouth to reply as the room quickly fell quiet. Turning his head, he saw two men walking down the stairs. His habits as a military officer kicked in at the sight of the two captains. Quickly rising to his feet his voice filled the room. "Company! Attention!"
The room filled with the instant sound of every NCR trooper standing up from their chairs.
The two officers stopped at the bottom of the stair and looked out to the crowded tavern. One was a tall, oak tree of a man with thinning, ginger hair. The other stood a few inches shorter and seemed slender in comparison to his companion. The shorter man peered around the room; he was baby-faced with short, brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Silas quickly noted a large scrolled up paper in his hand.
It was a brief moment before the taller one, Captain Flynn, addressed the room. "Thank you Sergeant Reed. However, I feel I should remind the whole of you that such military trivialities are unnecessary now. From this moment on you should not think yourselves as soldiers but instead explorers of the great unknown." Captain William Flynn began to tread lightly around the room as he spoke. The creaking floorboards beneath the captain's feet soon became the only sound to accompany his commanding voice. "Your rank and enlistment now are a mere reminder of the discipline and order we will need on this endeavor. Should the need arise we expect you all to act like the New California Republic professionals you all are…"
Silas noticed the men and women of the room began fidgeting and sneaking peeks around to see the faces of their peers. Some of their faces were filled with slight nervousness and others brimmed with excitement. Straight faced, the sergeant cast his attention back to Captain Flynn.
"…And now that we have gathered the final nine of our party this morning. I will hand the floor over to Captain Maxwell to give you all the greater details of our adventure." Flynn's voice commanded attention toward his fierce eyed companion.
"Men." Spouted the shorter captain a little awkwardly. "Flynn and I have spoken to every single one of you, but now that our whole group is together I think it's best to hash out what exactly we're all here for." Maxwell gave a motion for everyone to go ahead and sit back down.
The chairs seemed to collectively croak as everyone seated themselves. Silas scanned the room, quickly counting the number of total number of troopers. Twenty-seven, including himself, twenty-eight once he remembered Gibson outside. Before Silas could begin wondering if their current number was sufficient Captain Maxwell continued softly.
"As most of you know, our president Aaron Kimball has entrusted me to lead an expedition of discovery to the east. I, in turn, have entrusted every single one of you as a viable and necessary candidate to help me execute this expedition." Maxwell's voice had a tendency to awkwardly pitch itself. It was apparent that he was not very comfortable addressing everyone. Yet, he continued.
"An expedition of this magnitude has not taken place since before the Great War. It will be perilous. The full dangers of this former United States are beyond any of our comprehension. With that in mind, the greatest intellectuals of our republic have surveyed every old world map available and with their knowledge imparted to us a manageable route to the Atlantic Ocean."
Captain Maxwell paused as he began to fumble with the large scroll in his hand. From the middle of the room Captain Flynn quickly motioned for a pair of troopers to hold out the paper for everyone to see. As the troopers positioned themselves to give everyone a proper view Silas gazed at the large, pre-war map of the United States.
Captain Maxwell quickly motioned for a trooper in the crowd to join him. "Men, this is Corporal Joseph York. He has been educated and groomed in navigation, cartography and knows our route inside and out." The indicated trooper was a lanky, black man whose most noticeable feature seemed to be his crooked nose. York began to address the crowd in a booming voice.
"Hello everyone, I'm going to show you guys the route as it stands right now. We will make the journey from our current position to the Columbia River, here…" York pointed at the map showing the location of the river. The corporal began to slowly trace the route as he continued. "…After some time heading east we will land here and make our way along this pre-war highway until we come across this large Missouri River, here."
Everyone looked enthrallingly at the map, no doubt judging how much toilsome work they'd be in for. Silas grit his teeth at the thought of it.
"This river should take us all the way to what was formerly Saint Louis, Missouri. From there things will be a bit less clear but we figure we will make our way north to the Ohio River which should take us as far as Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. And once we're there it's just a quick hop until we've reached the coasts of the Atlantic."
Captain Maxwell gave the corporal a hearty pat on the back before gesturing him to sit back down. Once York took his seat the captain started up again.
"There you have it, as you can see, ours is a mission of discovery, science and adventure. Now that you all have seen our plan drawn out in full is there anyone here who wishes to back out. I assure you there will be no repercussions for doing so. This journey will be hard, and even our mildest predictions say it will be two years before we are back home. I do not judge anyone here for saying they are not up to this task." Maxwell paused and let the room settle on his words.
The anticipation that someone would refuse grew in the room like a wildfire. Long moments passed before Maxwell curled his lip in what Silas could only figure was a grin. The captain nodded almost to himself before he spoke again.
"Thank you all. We predict to leave this town for our march north in three days' time. I advise all of you to get some good night's rest before then and if there are any problems to let an officer know immediately. Sergeants, you are to meet with Captain Flynn and I before you retire, the rest of you are dismissed."
The room quickly buzzed with activity once more as everyone slowly began to make their way upstairs. As the troops began to make their way to the rooms Silas turned to Sergeant Maddux. The man gave him a quick shrug before gesturing that they should move to see the captains.
Aguilar, Medford, Maddux and himself seated themselves opposite Captains Flynn and Maxwell. Before any of them had time to fidget the owner of the hotel descended upon the table.
"Do you need anything, sirs and lady?" The man said quickly, no doubt trying his best to as inviting as possible. Captain Maxwell looked at him and shook his head before turning to Flynn who politely told the tavern owner to leave them alone.
Once the six of them were the only ones remaining in the room Captain Maxwell began to speak with a more comfortable tone than when he addressed the men. "Well, now that all of us are here it seems time for us to have a bit of organizational talk…" Maxwell paused as if expecting one of them to say something. Before anyone could find words Captain Flynn began where his partner left off.
"So the way we figure it our final roster comes out to twenty-eight. Maxwell and I figure our best way to organize this corps will be to assign each of you five troopers to be responsible for. The two leftovers will be corporals Joseph York (Who you've all met) and Miles Brock. Those two men will be our charges and assistants." The large captain looked at the four sergeants before turning to Maxwell.
The fierce eyed captain gave his own assessing glare toward each of the sergeants as he slowly spoke. "Are we all good with this set up?" he asked sincerely.
Silas turned to look at the other sergeants as they each mildly nodded and agreed. He leaned back in his chair a little before giving his own quick nod toward the captains. He couldn't help but think how much he hated being in charge of other people. Of the numerous things about this job he disliked the biggest one would always be the guilt of seeing someone you're responsible for screw up, and more often than not screwing up in this line of work meant ending up in the ground. It didn't matter the number of stars or chevrons the government sticks on your sleeve they may as well just be a reminder of how many dead kids you were responsible for.
Staring at the table Silas listened as Maxwell continued to talk.
"We've got lists here of your charges." He said sliding four pieces of paper toward each of the sergeants in front him. "If you have any problems with these selections see us before we leave here. Are there any other concerns before we get started tomorrow?"
Silas' head came up quickly. "We need better clothes for the rains up here. The regulation uniforms weren't designed with this type of weather in mind." He said to his commanders.
The other sergeants nodded as Flynn steadily replied, "We hear you. The plan right now is to trade for hides and pelts at the town of Gresham at the riverside. The locals probably know a good bit about raingear. We're prepared to trade."
Maddux quickly chimed in "Speaking of trade, what exactly are we bringing along for this ride? I was doing inventory today and I'm not sure our goods are sufficient."
Captain Maxwell flexed his hand on the table. He coolly began to respond, "The provisions have been meticulously prepared by the republic and myself. Right now we are going to leave here with around three hundred pounds of assorted trade goods, around four guns per person, tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition, military rations and foods that should last us months out there on top of what we scavenge and hunt, and in reality those're just the easy things to list." The captain paused as if wondering if he forgot something before continuing, "The full inventory will be done and listed before we leave. Even if we aren't equipped with everything we need I have faith in our ability to trade and adapt."
Silas nodded absently to himself. He trusted the words of his captain; he wouldn't have signed up for this otherwise. The conversation soon came to a close and the sergeants were dismissed. Going up the stairs Silas gave his first look toward his list of charges: Corporal Emily Schaffer, Private Jason Lin, Private John Shields, Private Harold Glass, Private Evelyn Tuttle. Tomorrow he'd have to meet all of them and make sure everybody was on the straight and narrow to get this thing done.
Entering his small, dimly lit room the sergeant undressed out of his now damp clothes. Enveloping himself in the bed he let himself for a moment feel excited about this grand adventure they were about to partake in. Just as quickly as the thought arose the sergeant passed out.