Chapter 25 The Plan
Glancing around her Arry knew that they were outnumbered and had no chance of escaping or fighting their way out. Slowly Arry slipped the bag off her back and dropped it on the ground before glancing behind her and motioning for North and Infinity to do the same.
North quickly put his pistol down on the ground and eventually Infinity put down his bag and shotgun though he did it quite reluctantly.
"My thanks." The glowing ghoul said as he looked at the soldiers who had surrounded Arry and the others and motioned them to also lower their weapons.
"Be glad you're not Beach Raiders." One of the ghouls hissed as she walked over and stood beside the glowing ghoul folding her arms.
"If you're not Beach Raiders and you're not travellers because none of those would be foolish enough to walk into Beach Raider territory then who are you?" The Glowing ghoul asked looking at Arry.
"We've come here to help stop the Raiders from stealing weapons." Arry said stepping forward slightly.
"Yes their handy work with our weapons can be seen from here." The glowing ghoul said pointing in the distance across the Harbour where black smoke rose up into the sky from where New Harbour was. "But the question begs, how did you know where to come?"
The female ghoul standing beside the glowing one slowly walked forward and looked directly at Hustler who was doing his best to try and hide behind Infinity.
"Commander, it's him!" The female ghoul hissed marching forward and grabbing Hustler by the arm. "The one we let go all those years ago, the one those Raiders mentioned."
"You!" The Commander said angrily. "It is because of you that our base has been invaded and that the lives of all those at New Harbour were lost. You deserve punishment for the deaths of my men and those civillians…" He turned to the female ghoul. "Faith, kill him."
"No you can't." Arry said instantly turning to watch as Faith pulled out her shotgun.
"Restrain them." Faith sneered angrily and before Arry had a chance to do or say anything one of the soldiers from the circle around them jumped in front of her holding her back.
"Hey…" Infinity said angrily as two more ghouls grabbed him and held him back as he struggled against them whilst North was calmly restrained.
Arry watched in a panic as she tried to think of something to say as Faith pushed Hustler down onto the ground onto his knees and put the barrel of the shotgun beside his head.
"It was his idea he led us here!" Arry called out in desperation as she turned to The Commander. "He wanted to help."
The Commander looked at Arry for a brief moment before turning to Faith.
"Enough." He said looking at her sternly.
"But Sir!" Faith exclaimed.
"That's an order!" The Commander said glaring at Faith as she huffed angrily and pulled back her shotgun but still stared angrily down at Hustler who looked relieved.
"You're telling me he wanted to come help us?" The Commander said walking forward up to Arry who quickly nodded hoping it wasn't too obvious to him that she was lying.
"I-I wanted to help you after everything…." Hustler said slowly standing up and looking at The Commander who motioned his soldiers to let Arry and the others go.
"They're lying!" Faith said angrily throwing her hands in the air.
"No we're not." Infinity said crossing his arms.
"What of you ghoul? Are they telling the truth?" The Commander said looking back at Dr North who Arry knew would want nothing more than to have Hustler killed since it was because of him his daughter had died. Dr North seemed to think for a moment before glancing at Arry and sighing.
"Yes." North said plainly without another word as he turned back to face The Commander.
The Commander walked up to Hustler who looked up at him with a worried expression and Arry almost expected him to kill Hustler right then and there.
"We will see." The Commander said before turning back around to Arry and the others. "Now let us move we are exposed here, we have made a makeshift camp nearby."
With that The Commander and other soldiers began to walk off into the distance.
"I'm watching you, all of you." Faith said angrily glaring at Arry, Infinity, North, Hustler and Mark 5-0 before they all began to follow after The Commander.
As they walked Arry took the opportunity to walk over towards Dr North who hadn't said a word.
"Thank you." Arry said softly looking at North who looked a little angry but soon breathed out calmly and turned to her.
"I did this for you and not for him." North said truthfully. "He only gets one chance with me Arry and this was it I'm not going to protect him again."
Arry nodded and watched North turn back around and follow after The Commander and the others but before she could follow after them Hustler walked up beside her.
"There you go again." Hustler said as the two started to walk.
"You know this means you're going to have to actually help us out." Arry said folding her arms and looking down at Hustler who gave a slight nod.
"For you I'll try." Hustler said as Infinity walked up beside the pair.
"If I were you and there was some type of lottery I've never heard about here at New Sydney I'd buy a lottery ticket." Infinity sneered shaking his head as Hustler took the hint and walked away so that Arry and Infinity could talk.
"What did I say to you about arguing with him?" Arry said looking up at Infinity with a frown.
"I could list a dozen reasons why I should argue with him some more!" He started. "Firstly…"
"No, no I'm not saying I believe you couldn't." Arry said quickly.
"I'll hold onto them for another time." Infinity grinned looking down at Arry who was deep in thought.
"You mentioned before that you had seen a glowing ghoul before?" She asked looking up at Infinity who nodded.
"I have only ever seen two before and both times the ghoul was absolutely insane and I had to kill them and since they've absorbed so much radiation which heals ghouls they can be real hard to kill because they'll try to hide and heal themselves and then attack again." He chuckled a little. "This one tried to attack me at night and it thought it was really clever trying to hide behind objects in the city which was a complete waste of time since he was so bright you could have seen him from a few kilometers away."
"I don't understand why they glow though? Why don't normal ghouls glow as well? Haven't you all been exposed to radiation?"
"If you'd like a better explanation I'd probably ask North or The Commander himself however I think it's because they were exposed to large quantities of radiation in a very short period of time."
Arry thought to herself but still didn't understand why then the Commander was a glowing ghoul but then all the other soldiers who followed him like Faith weren't? She didn't have long to ponder as she could see the group had stopped not too far ahead and were all standing beside a small fire.
It was now in the bright light of the fire that Arry could see that the number of soldiers the Commander actually had were not as many as she had originally thought. She had thought that he would have had a lot more but it appeared that he only had about 20 soldiers all of which she could tell quite quickly were ghouls.
"I'm sure the loud mouth has told you all about our base?" Faith said as Arry and Infinity walked up beside the fire where everyone was gathered.
"Actually he hasn't, he just told us where to come." Arry said looking at Faith who just rolled her eyes obviously not believing a word she was saying.
"I have to admit I find it very hard to believe that there was any base around here, I have lived in this region for over 120 years and have never come across this base before." Infinity said crossing his arms.
Before any of them had a chance to reply they heard a sound in the distance which made Arry believe that perhaps the Beach Raiders had found them but when she turned to look at Faith and The Commander they didn't appear too concerned.
Arry watched from the shadows as a man appeared who seemed to be surprised that Arry and her friends were there.
"These aren't Beach Raiders right?" The man said walking forward into the light where Arry could see that he was human.
"No need to be concerned they're here to help." The Commander said turning to the man who simply nodded.
"I'm surprised you didn't just shoot them on site Faith." The man said turning to Faith who didn't say anything. 'I should introduce myself and not just stand here making assumptions which are probably wrong." The man said looking back around quickly. "My names Carter, I'm the medic for these soldiers. What are your names? Oh only if you don't mine me asking of course!"
"Medic?" North said stepping forward.
"Oh yes self-trained, but wait no not really but mostly." Carter said out aloud
"Wait, what?" Infinity said shaking his head.
"Well my mother taught me before I decided to leave home and go to New Harbour but then I was trapped by those Beach Raiders on the beaches near here but Faith came and rescued me and I've been working with them ever since, well, up until they destroyed our base. Now I'm here, well that's obvious I guess right?" He grinned.
"We could have used you at New Harbour we always need medical experts." North said walking up to Carter who thought for a moment.
"Yes, wait no…yes I remember you're Dr North right?" North nodded. "The famed Doctor of New Harbour! Yes I have heard about you, glad you didn't die over there because that would have been a shame wouldn't it have been Faith? Now…" Carter kept talking to North as Infinity turned back to The Commander and Faith.
"Well I'm Infinity and this is Arry." Infinity said as The Commander looked intrigued.
"Funny seeing both of us here being as rare as we are." The Commander said looking at Infinity who nodded.
"I have seen two of your kind before though they weren't very civilized."
"Oh it's you!" Carter said popping his head around from talking to North. "There has only ever been one recording of a ghoul like you in Australia, maybe the world? I don't know but doesn't matter." He said walking up to Infinity who to Arry seemed to enjoy the attention. 'I'd love to get a blood sample maybe to test with, hmm but I don't have a lab so maybe later then, yes?" He turned to Faith. "Look Faith!" He grinned as Arry just saw Faith shake her head.
"Don't forget about me Infinity-Human." Mark 5-0 said hovering forward.
"An eye-bot!" The Commander said fascinated. "I haven't seen one of these things in over 60 years. How did you manage to find a working one?"
"He used to work at New Harbour but other than that I have no idea." Infinity shrugged.
"During the creation of New Harbour he just turned up one day and so Major decided to use him as a greeter out the front to greet people." North said stepping forward as Faith who appeared very intrigued stepped forward to look at Mark 5-0.
"Have you ever tried to rig this thing up with explosives or something?" Faith said with a grin. "No one would ever expect it."
"No…he's staying with us." Arry said quickly with a slight frown.
"Ah yes you're The Vaultee." The Commander said with a nod looking at her pip-boy.
"How do you know who I am?" Arry asked wondering how it was that everyone in the wastes of Old Sydney seemed to know who she was.
"A captured Beach Raider was more than willing to squeal about what his leader was up to and who'd he'd recently met." Faith said calmly.
"The prisoner explained how Ryder used you to send a secret message to New Harbour and warn Major and how he expects you to give a similar message to New Sydney and the Matriarch." The Commander said looking at Arry who was slightly annoyed at how everyone knew who she was but she didn't say anything. "I believe that perhaps now it is our turn to explain who we are and how up until recently we weren't discovered." He looked back at Infinity. "Over 120 year ago when the threat of war was sparking in the world the Australian Government ordered the construction of the vaults and they also got a special task force group to construct a well hidden army and ammunition base which in the case of a nuclear attack and fallout would be safe so that afterwards they could use the base to retaliate against our attackers. The base was constructed underneath an old government building in a safe house bunker that was well fortified and protected. One week before the bombs dropped myself and my team were deployed at the base. As to not arouse the public's suspicions ammunition, weapons and bombs were flown in during the night and we used a local golf course which had been closed down as a landing pad to drop off our equipment that my men and I transported into the bunker under the government building."
"If you were safe in the bunker under the building how did you become affected by radiation?" Arry asked confused as to why if they had been safe in a fortified bunker they had been affected by radiation at all.
"We weren't quick enough and the very first bombs to be dropped on Sydney dropped very close to where we are here right now." He said looking around him at all the buildings which had been blown completely apart. "When the first bombs dropped it was absolute hysteria in this entire city….you could probably recall this as well you two." The Commander said looking at Infinity and North who both nodded. "Instead of running straight into the bunker I ordered my soldiers to try and save as many civilians as possible and get them down into the bunker before another bomb dropped even closer and wiped us all out."
"In the midst of chaos, death and destruction people weren't willing to follow orders and so there was nothing we were able to do." Faith said shaking her head. "In the time we wasted trying to save those people another bomb dropped very close to us and the rest is history." She shrugged.
"Most of my men were killed in the blast and those that weren't dragged themselves into the bunker with a few other surviving civilians we found. Once inside the bunker it was after a week or two we began to notice that some of us were changing…at first we thought we were all going to simply die but eventually the disease stopped eating away our flesh and left us looking like this."
"Everyone became a ghoul?" North said stepping forward intrigued by the story.
"Not all, a lot of my men and civilians died from the radiation process and some went insane during the ghoul process and had to be killed and after a year the 60 of us that had crammed into the bunker only 30 of us remained and all of us were ghouls."
"How did you become a glowing ghoul though?" Arry asked confused as to why he was so much different than the others.
"The fault is entirely my own." The Commander said shaking his head. "After I ordered my men who survived into the bunker I not realizing why I wasn't getting sick from radiation exposure decided to leave the bunker on days at a time as I tried to contact our government and find survivors not realizing how decimated our city and country actually was."
"Most of those who fled the bombing and destruction of the city fled in all directions." Infinity said stepping forward. "Only a select few like myself and my sister decided to remain not understanding why weren't being affected by the radiation. We used to believe like a lot of others that we were the lucky ones and could just start rebuilding."
"Quickly realizing that almost no one was left alive after a week of searching I decided to seal the bunker and wait for word from the government, something I'm afraid that would never come due to the complete obliteration of Canberra."
"So you sealed yourself in the bunker?" Arry asked as the Commander nodded. "For how long?"
"Unlike the vaults who were ordered to never open their doors until they heard from the government we had been given the choice to be able to leave when we saw fit to."
"How many years did you spend in the bunker?" Infinity asked.
"Over 50 years before we began to see the other side effects of being a ghoul other than physical appearance..."
"How we didn't age, how our senses of hearing and smell greatly increased, how our eyesight became poor and…our inability to have children." Faith said solemnly.
"Having not heard any word from the government about what we should do we decided to leave the bunker but remain in the immediate area and protect our stash of weapons and bombs for any future retaliation efforts." The Commander turned to Infinity. "I am not surprised that you never found us we very rarely ventured far from this bunker and if we ever did we traveled in casual clothes as to not draw attention to ourselves. From the outside the government building that once stood above our bunker is nothing but rubble and so wouldn't have been of any interest to people walking by."
"That was at least until one person came in and found us…." Faith said in a low voice turning to Hustler who had remained quiet.
"Oh dear look at you, you look horrible!" Carter said peering around to see Hustler standing in the shadows. "Let me take a look at you…" Carter said but before he had a chance to move Faith quickly stepped forward.
"Let him suffer." She said looking down at Carter who didn't seem too fazed at all by her cold and angry demeanor.
"Just a check nothing more ok?" Carter said side stepping past Faith who grumbled to herself but did nothing.
"Yes one day whilst we were out this man you call Hustler managed to come across our bunker and find his way inside." The Commander said looking at Hustler who was being checked over Carter. "When we found him stealing objects in our bunker we confiscated them and told him to leave."
"We should have just killed him." Faith said angrily.
"We were not murderers and so we let him go on the promise he would never tell anyone about what he had found and that if he ever returned he would be killed."
"You put a lot of trust into a stranger." Arry said wondering whether Faith was right and he had been wrong just letting Hustler leave.
"A mistake? Yes, but at the time I believed I was doing the right thing because unlike these Beach Raiders we do not kill innocent people."
"I don't understand how the Beach Raiders managed to get the best of you when you had so many weapons at your disposal?" Infinity asked confused.
"Years of never having been threatened by any outside sources made us believe we'd never be attacked and we had no idea the Beach Raiders had grown to such a scale." He sighed. "They attacked our bunker in force and in the surprise many of my men were murdered and only a handful of us managed to escape with our lives."
"We should have stayed and fought to the end!" Faith said crossing her arms. "Instead of running away like cowards, we're soldiers not children."
"We would have all been killed if we had stayed but by escaping and regrouping we have a chance to try and take back what we've lost which we wouldn't have had if we had all died and it is obvious now more than ever we must reclaim our bunker now that we know what the Beach Raiders are intending to do with the stolen weapons."
"We were there when they attacked New Harbour and it appeared as though Ryder had sent most of his men there during the attack and I believe that they will spend at least the next 24 hours there looting and taking everything they can, if you're going to take back the military bunker than we either do it soon or we'll lose our opportunity." Arry said stepping forward. "We have seen they have already stolen some weapons and bombs but I believe it was enough only to test on New Harbour which means now they know the bombs work well they will try and stock up on as many as possible to attack New Sydney and the dam."
"We have been organizing an attack but there have been catches…" The Commander said pacing a little.
"I don't understand?" Arry asked wondering why if they had also known that most Beach Raiders would be at new Harbour that they hadn't stormed the bunker and killed the Beach Raiders especially since they would most likely not be expecting it.
"Killing the Beach Raiders isn't a problem for us trained soldiers." Faith said holding onto her shotgun proudly. "The problem is that now the Beach Raiders know where the bunker is they'll never stop trying to get back in to steal the weapons."
"Can't you just move them?" Infinity asked.
"Small guns and grenades we can move but the larger bombs we have will take considerable effort to move and we don't have anywhere to put them." The Commander said as he stopped pacing. "Even if we draw away all the Beach Raiders from the bunker and destroy that bridge of theirs I know this Ryder will do everything in his power to get back by any means and get those bombs."
"Maybe we could take them to New Sydney?" Faith said thinking out aloud as Infinity quickly shook his head.
"There's no way Matriarch would ever allow such huge weapons to be kept in her town, she may allow the smaller weapons but not those large bombs."
"But there's nowhere else we can store them safely enough so that no rouge gangs will find them especially now that it's out that we exist." Faith argued.
Arry thought to herself knowing that leaving any of those bombs at the bunker would be a stupid move because Ryder would do anything in his power to get them and even if the small bridge he made was destroyed he would find a way to get the bombs. Ryder was no fool and knew these large bombs could be the answer to his problems of controlling the entire Sydney region from the beaches all the way up to New Sydney. She also knew that there no way that all of the soldiers and her friends combined would be able to move such large and heavy bombs, not only would they be extremely dangerous and they had no heavy machinery to move them but like Infinity said without being able to store them at New Sydney they had nowhere to put them. To Arry there was now only one solution.
"What if we destroy the entire base itself?" Arry said as everyone around her instantly went quiet and turned to her.
"Destroy them! We need those weapons for our ultimate retaliation!" Faith argued angrily. "These bombs may be the last defense our country has to another attack."
"It has been over 100 years since all the bombs dropped and I don't believe any country in the entire world is in any state to attack us now." Arry said knowing that if Australia had been devastated by the war then other countries would have as well and would be more concerned about rebuilding then thinking about attacking each other again, at least for a little while.
"She's right Faith." The Commander said turning to Faith. "Even if we held onto those bombs and moved them to another secret location when was the last time you saw a moving car, a helicopter or a plane to even carry the bombs? Sitting there in our bunker they are useless without a proper military to use them."
"So you're just saying we give up what we've been protecting for over a century?!" Faith said throwing her hands in the air. "We're just going to run away again…"
"Enough!" The Commander said angrily which made Arry jump in surprise. "There is nothing else we can do and we don't have enough time to contemplate another solution."
"I'm not going to throw away everything we've worked so hard to protect!" Faith said before turning around storming off into the darkness.
"Faith! Where are you going?" Carter said calling out after her but she just ignored him and disappeared.
Arry looked after for a moment before turning back to the Commander who didn't seem to be too concerned.
"Don't worry about her she's always been very headstrong…Duty has always been very important to her but I am afraid I am not at liberty to discuss why and we should be focusing on our plan because the sun will be rising soon and we will have to get into place quickly. " The Commander said looking at Arry who nodded before he called over all the soldiers so they formed a circle around him. "The plan is this men so listen up. There are two entrances into the bunker and after we have cleaned up the Raiders around the bunker two teams will enter the bunker one from each entrance. Myself, Infinity here and the two doctors will set up a defence around the outside of the bunker in case we encounter more Beach Raider resistance. It is important we let no one escape down south to warn the Beach Raiders who will ultimately send more Raiders before the two teams have had a chance to remove as many weapons as possible. Now where's our engineer?" The Commander said looking around as one of the ghoul soldiers stepped forward. "You and the machine will rig one of the bombs inside up to an electronic device so we can detonate it once we are at a safe distance."
"Understood." Mark 5-0 said hovering forward.
"What about the bridge?" Arry asked.
"Once we blow up the bunker I can bet that Ryder will send more men across his bridge to try and find us or see if he can scavenge anything from the destroyed building. The more of his men we have on this side of the Harbour when we destroy his bridge the better because it means his army on the southern side of the Harbour will be weakened."
"It's going to be impossible to get anywhere near that bridge when this bunker goes up, there will be Beach Raiders everywhere." Infinity added.
"We wouldn't be able to go and plant something there now because then the camp beside the bridge will suspect something." Arry said thinking of the group of tents she had seen after they had gotten off the bridge.
"We'll think of what we can do about that later because first we need to take that bunker. Robot you go with the engineer, Carter and the Doctor will stay with Infinity and I on the outside in case of an emergency, Hustler and Arry you'll accompany one of the teams inside the bunker and help remove weapons." The Commander said looking at the group in front of him.
"What about Faith?" Carter asked looking into the darkness.
"She can look after herself. Now let's get organized I can see the sun starting to rise…"