Fort Wait Refugee Camp
As I write this, it's already 10 p. m., Augustus is still wide awake and turns on his desk lamp to read.
Suddenly, his personal terminal rang. The caller ID showed Harnack: "Augustus, it's bad! Zander and Jim were kidnapped by the gang tonight when they went out!"
"Don't rush, tell me carefully what happened?" Augustus closed his laptop, his brow furrowed as he pondered the meaning of Harnack's words.
A few seconds later, Augustus stood up, walked to the bedroom door, took his personal terminal in one hand and a flat cap and coat from the coat rack next to the door with the other. He was only wearing a shirt at the time, and walked towards the main entrance of the living room while talking.
Normally, when the clumsy Harnack stood together with the stern Ward, Augustus would think of the bumbling and the grumpy, but Harnack wasn't the kind of guy who would call him in the middle of the night to play pranks; only Josephine would do something like that.
"The refugee camp in Fort Wait, we're going to the Hovey Town to buy food for the refugees..." The more Augustus told Harnack not to rush, the more agitated he became, to the point that he couldn't even organize his thoughts.
"Let me speak..." The person next to him took the phone; it sounded like Tychus Findlay. There was a lot of wind on the other end, indicating that the two of them were likely in some remote wilderness.
"Mengsk, here's the gist of it." Tychus spoke at a steady pace, his words clear and organized, though his downside was that he talked a lot of nonsense—though not nearly as much as he did during battles, Augustus usually ignored.
"When we went to Hovey Town to have some fun today, Jim and Zander overheard someone talking about the Fort Wait Refugee Camp, saying that the people there were starving and freezing to death. You know Zander's personality, he's as kind as Snow White, he can even cry while watching a children's movie," Tychus said.
"I didn't take it seriously at all, but they just had to meddle."
He said with a hint of schadenfreude, "I don't know where Zander got so much money, he actually bought two truckloads of clothes and bread and sent them to the refugee camp. Jim and Harnack were worried about him, so they went along too... Of course, those two must have contributed a lot of money as well."
"They hadn't been in the refugee camp long when the gang kidnapped them and their vehicle. Harnack and I happened to be taking a leak, so we escaped."
"Fort Wait Refugee Camp ..." Augustus had already come out of the living room and was struggling to put on his coat in the elevator going downstairs. He didn't have time to wonder why Tychus had come along, "I've never heard of it."
"That refugee camp is far from Fort Howe, in a basin twenty miles south of the ruins of Fort Wait. It was built by the city's residents who fled after Fort Wait was razed to the ground by the Haigolong Legion ... As usual, the Confederacy has always turned a blind eye, as if all those refugees are dead," Tychus said.
"Don't they know who those refugees are? I'm sure someone must have secretly gone to the local gangs. We went in civilian clothes; those bastards didn't know we were Marines."
"Send me the location coordinates." Augustus walked into the underground parking garage and jumped into his command vehicle.
"Stay where you are and don't move. I'll be right there."
"We're not going anywhere, boss," Harnack's voice suddenly rang out.
"Damn it! Don't get so close to my face!" Tychus roared as he hung up the phone.
They seem to be in a pretty good situation; at least they still have the energy to argue.
"Major Warfield." Augustus contacted Warfield's personal terminal as they drove toward the 3rd Platoon's camp.
"Speak," Warfield uttered a single word.
"Two of my soldiers have been captured by gangsters at the Fort Wait Refugee Camp, and I'm going to take men to find them," Augustus.
"I don't have time to write the report."
"Should I send another platoon?" Warfield paused for a moment before saying, "I'll immediately notify the parking platform to prepare the transport plane."
"A resocialized platoon," Augustus. "They will be under my command."
There was no need to send so many people to the refugee camp, but the refugee camp was a mixed bag, and Augustus was not sure if the gangs there had dangerous weapons.
"We must avoid harming civilians as much as possible," Warfield concluded.
"I know." Augustus's command vehicle stopped at the entrance to the barracks, and the two Sentinel guarding the gate saluted him immediately upon seeing him.
"Notify all squads that we're working the night shift tonight." The two Sentinel belonged to Augustus's third platoon, second squad, and were privates.
"Yes, sir!"
The two APOD light transport ships had been flying in the air for about twenty minutes. In the darkness, the transport ships, with their lights flashing, looked like fireflies flying towards the horizon.
At some point, the transport ship began to descend, its thrusters perpendicular to the ground, hovering in the air.
The movable panels on both sides of the spacecraft slowly opened, and Marines in Power Armor jumped from a height of several dozen feet, landing on the soft snow with the cushioning of their jetpacks.
These Marines' Power Armor is painted in the signature black and gray of the Heaven's Devils, with a white skull on their visors. One of the soldiers is carrying a Heaven's Devils winged demon banner.
One after another, dilapidated "houses" appeared before Augustus and his companions.
The refugees built their homes using car frames, shipping containers, prefabricated panels, and other materials sourced from the city. The shapes and colors of these oddly shaped, colorful buildings depended entirely on the sturdiness of the building materials and the ingenuity of the builders.
No two refugee houses are alike; the only thing they have in common is that they are all very basic and look extremely vulnerable to collapse.
The builders of the refugee camp clearly did not consider the issue of sewage disposal. Frozen sewage and excrement were found between rows of tightly packed shacks, large areas of open space were piled with industrial waste, and useless garbage was carelessly discarded.
The dilapidated shack was crooked and swaying precariously in the wind, covered in engine oil, mud, and other filth. Large patches of dark red, like scabs and mold, clung to the walls and roof, forming an ugly layer of skin.
Even so, these houses could be considered mansions in the refugee camp. A significant number of other houses were shacks without walls, built with beams and scrap metal, no different from cowsheds. In this cold, dark night, they were filled with people who had frozen and starved to death.
"Londerstein, take the 1st Squad to find Tychus and Harnack," Augustus said over the communication channel.
"Cheer up! Here you'll find ordinary refugees, thugs, large gangs, smugglers, terrorists, and separatists who hate the government and the Marines."
The group name has been added to the description.
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