War Refugees

Maps of the refugee camp transmitted back by geostationary satellites show that the camp, consisting of thousands of crooked buildings, stretches for a mile with almost no walkable roads and no lights. The best houses are newly built wooden lofts and huts, through which faint firelight can be seen.

The problem of war refugees has a long history, and the inhabitants of every warring planet are the most direct victims of the battlefield. The Terran Confederacy is unwilling to invest resources in accommodating refugees on planets where war is fierce and cities are constantly changing hands.

As for the Kel-Morian people, they would establish settlements and colonies on every mineral-rich planet, extracting all the resources before abandoning them.

Their predatory and nomadic colonial methods meant that they colonized far fewer planets than the Terran Confederacy, with only a few core worlds having large populations. Most of their wars were fought within the Confederacy's territory, leaving the Terrans on the outlying planets mostly as refugees.

The Kel-Morian Combine is inherently warlike, with every citizen serving as a soldier; adult Kel-Morian who have lost their homes will join the army.

Turaxis is a mineral-rich planet, but its high-energy gas resources are relatively scarce, and it relied heavily on imports before the war. During the war, the trade routes of the Terran Confederacy were greatly affected, which made life even more difficult for the local residents, especially refugees.

Kel-Morian warships were far less large and heavily armored than those of the Terran Confederacy, but their more mobile assault ships and starships could use wolfpack tactics to attack caravans and escape before the enraged Confederacy Fleets arrived.

With the support of the Kel-Morian Combine guild, many Kel-Morian Fleets became professional pirates.

The sharp decline in imported goods has plunged Turaxis into a fuel crisis and localized food crises, as all the gas refineries and mines on the planet are being supplied to the front lines.

This paralyzed civilian trains, cars, and most other modes of transportation. Seeders, harvesters, and agricultural robots were unable to function properly, and a major famine broke out in many parts of Turaxis, which was already barely able to sustain itself.

Take, for example, Pride of Boke, the first city Augustus garrisoned after arriving in Turaxis Augustus. Of the more than one million inhabitants of Pride of Boke, more than half died in the first year of the war.

When war broke out, the city's food reserves were forcibly requisitioned. To keep the city's residents away from the fighting and ensure their safety, armed soldiers drove law-abiding Confederacy citizens who paid their taxes on time out of their homes, many without even having time to bring clothes and blankets.

Town Hall officials told them there was a completed refugee camp outside the city, but in reality, it was just a barren wasteland.

The Tarsonis government merely issued orders to evacuate civilians and boasted about its achievements in media outlets such as the UNN, without providing any shelter for those civilians.

Government officials and senators turned a deaf ear and refused to spend more money; the lives of the people were Reagan. They only remembered that a group of people needed to be evacuated when the time came, and then forgot about it completely because they were "too busy."

Neither the Confederacy nor the Old Families of Tarsonis, behind them, wanted to spend a single penny on refugees. That money had to be invested in weapons manufacturing and other monopolistic industries that had flourished due to the war, to extract even greater profits.

The war continued, and the planetary governor and military command of Turaxis remained indifferent to the refugees.

The local refugee administration was set up merely to silence the media, with only a dozen or so civilian staff and cheap security guards hired locally. The Confederacy would only approve funding to pay these staff salaries; the department actually had neither the authority nor the funds to manage.

In the increasingly bloated and corrupt administrative system of the Terran Confederacy, this has ironically become a means for corrupt officials to embezzle funds.

When winter came that year, most of those who had been driven out of Pride of Boke either starved or froze to death.

We need some guides.

Augustus took a few steps on the snow-covered ground, the only sounds being the whirring of the servo system and the wind outside his helmet. The landing site was in an open area outside the refugee camp, with no cover in sight, only some garbage and cinders.

"Find them."

The Marines behind him immediately split into two groups and entered the refugee camp from his left and right, turning into the gaps between the houses, their searchlights shining brightly in the dark night.

Zander and Raynor were in the hands of a gang and could be killed at any moment. Augustus have time to use a megaphone to ask who was willing to cooperate with the Confederate Marine Corps.

A chorus of screams and shouts erupted from the houses ahead, but quickly subsided. A few minutes later, Augustus's Heaven's Devils returned to their commander with several men dressed in long robes and thick coats.

"We are Confederate Marine Corps here to wipe out the gangs in this area. I am Sergeant Mengsk. If any of you can provide information about the gangs, in the name of Jesus Christ, I guarantee that you will be able to return home safely afterward." Augustus looked at the refugees in front of him.

"As a token of our gratitude, my soldiers will give you some emergency rations and clean water."

"I know...I know..." they immediately answered, vying with each other.

"You go first," Augustus, looking at one of them.

"There's only one big gang here; they call themselves the Freedom Revolutionary Army," said a man in a tattered overcoat.

"A rather impressive name, but that's not important." Augustus interrupted him, "Tell me how many they have, and where their stronghold is."

"There were about two hundred of them, some of whom were wearing armor just like you." The refugee, whose face was covered in frostbite, seemed to recall something, and gasped for breath, inhaling the cold air into his lungs.

"The Freedom Revolutionary Army's stronghold isn't here," he said. "They mainly operate around Fennar Crossroads, a town about seven miles from here."

"Do you know exactly where their stronghold is at Fennar Crossroads?" Augustus didn't hold out much hope.

However, the information Augustus obtained was still very useful: this gang was likely connected to the Kel-Morian people or even the Confederacy's own army. At this time, the chances of Power Armor falling into the hands of civilian armed groups were very small.

Although Fennar Crossroads is just a small town, its population has exceeded 50,000. It is a town built on rare mineral deposits, and its residents, for three generations, have been miners who have made a living by going down into the mines.

Augustus realized that asking Warfield for an extra platoon was the right decision, and his usual caution helped him.

"I don't know, sir," the refugee said. "That's all I know."

"Who else knows more?" Augustus continued.

"Nobody knows where the Freedom Revolutionary Army's headquarters is, and they have many enemies," another refugee immediately chimed in. "But if we capture one of their leaders, everything will be solved."

"All the gang members are residents of Fennar Crossroads, and their boss is Silas Tusk. Tasker likes to wear gold necklaces and gold watches when he goes out, and he often goes for drives in a convertible Terra Hover Car."

"Hmm..." Augustus nodded. He waited a moment, and when no one spoke again, he said, "I understand, Heck!"

Then, at Augustus's instruction, Corporal Heck, the squad leader of the second squad, handed each of them an M-2 Backpack filled with food and water. Augustus did not intend to give them much food; they were surrounded by hungry refugees, and hunger and greed would turn them into monsters.

When Londerstein returned with the 1st Squad, Tychus and Harnack were following behind him.

"Boss, I've finally found you..." Harnack said, panting as he ran all the way.

"What did you find out?" Tychus asked, pointing to the refugees who were running away.

"We might have to go to Fennar Crossroads," Augustus. "Jim and Zander might not be there, but as long as we uproot this gang, that will be fine."

"Maybe I know where they are." Tychus grinned smugly as he picked up his personal terminal. It displayed a blurry satellite map with a crooked red line connecting two points.

"You installed a tracker on the truck." Augustus's eyes lit up. "Tychus, you did a good job. But I don't understand why you did it, unless you knew there were robbers."

"It's always good to be cautious. I've spent over a decade in the military, and I've learned a thing or two." Tychus chuckled. "I noticed someone was suspiciously following us, and those bastards have no idea that there was a satellite tracking device the size of a fingernail hidden in the gap of one of the truck beds."

"But I still want to remind you, always think of the worst-case scenario. Maybe those two guys are already dead, and we'll just be collecting their corpses if we go there," Tychus said with a touch of sadness.

"Sigh... I'll miss Jim. That kid was so young, I never thought he'd leave this old man before me."

"That's not necessarily true." Augustus waved his hand, and his men immediately lined up and headed toward the landing transport ship.

"Jim and Zander must have been targeted when they bought food in Hovey Town. They spent too much money at once. And the road to the refugee camp is so long, it's hard to avoid being noticed."

"But this may have saved their lives... The gangsters knew they were rich, so they would have had time to interrogate them to find out their bank passwords, and eventually contact their families to get the ransom," Augustus.

"Come on, do you want me to give you a gun?"

"What, you expect me to bite the enemy's ass off with my teeth?" Tychus revealed a fierce expression.

"I thought you didn't want to go." Augustus chuckled, tossing his rifle to Tychus Londerstein.

"To hell with it, they've spent all their money on the food... I rented these two trucks, God knows how much I'm going to lose." Tychus's heart was bleeding; this was the real reason he installed the trackers—he was afraid they would get lost.

"I won't see Krena, Susan, Miti, and Ansofite from Aolei Town for at least two weeks!"

Augustus silent.

Shouldering his Electromagnetic Rifle, Tychus asked as he followed Augustus toward the gangway of the transport ship, "Any cigars?"

No, you know I never smoke.

"Hold it in."

Wayne Ranch, three miles north of Fennar Crossroads.

This ranch was originally used by locals to graze Turaxis reindeer—creatures that feed on the thorny bushes of the planet's cold regions but look more like some kind of quadrupedal reptile than a reindeer.

The place is now deserted, but a dozen brightly lit precast concrete and reinforced concrete buildings stand on a fenced-off area, and a dozen gang members armed with Electromagnetic Rifle patrol between the buildings.

Behind one of the four-story concrete buildings, there was a ten-foot-deep circular pit, its bottom and inner walls made of concrete. Inside the pit were two people, Raynor and Zander, who had been kidnapped, while four or five gang members stood on the edge watching them.

"It's minus twenty degrees Celsius, kind gentlemen."

Silas Tusk stood at the edge of the pit, smiling as he looked at the "guest" he had invited. Unlike his usual nouveau riche attire, Task was now only wearing a somewhat worn fur coat, his greasy hair hanging listlessly on his forehead.

Tasker was a very clever man. Almost everyone thought the Freedom Revolutionary Army's headquarters were inside Fennar Crossroads, but that was just a ruse. In reality, he had five different strongholds.

"If I pour just one bucket of water on you, you'll all have an arm or a leg frostbitten," he said. "You'd better tell me the rest of your bank account details and passwords."

"We've given you all our bank account numbers and passwords," Raynor said, making a rummaging motion in his pocket.

"We have no money."

"You're lying!" Task suddenly shouted. "How could anyone take out all their money to buy food and give it to a bunch of complete strangers?"

"That's impossible!"

"Mr. Raynor," he emphasized again, "My patience is very limited."

"I don't know what you can expect from a penniless man?" Raynor said. "I'm so poor I'm practically pawning my pants."

"If I were a boss, I'd definitely be the kind of person who couldn't even pay my employees' salaries."

"You're quite the smooth talker, Mr. Raynor, ha... but I'll shut you up forever in no time." Tusk had to accept the fact that Raynor was a penniless man, and he began to grow incredibly angry.

"I know you two are Marines, but don't think that the Freedom Revolutionary Army is afraid of you Confederacy lackeys! So what if you're Marines? Marines are nothing but a bunch of trash!"

"The world belongs to the workers, the world belongs to Kel-Morian!"

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