Entering Lord Alexanders camp was something of an eye opener to say the least. Bear in mind that we had come from a camp of two hundred people, and now here we were in what felt like thousands and thousands. We later found out that the camp population was six thousand five hundred but it was still more people than we had ever seen in one place, and the whole structure of the camp was beyond anything we had imagined. The perimeter walls were built up with workshops whilst accommodation was in mud-brick structures rather than the tents that we were used to. The central block which I took to be the equivalent of our command centre was a five story building, much larger than ours. There were wind turbines around the camp generating power and the whole area was impressive.
We parked up and disembarked, and were led over to the command centre, passing through heavy steel security doors into a large open space easily big enough to hold our entire group as well as what seemed like most of the population of the camp. Lord Alexander himself strode forward to meet us, shaking Sirius’ hand before addressing our group.
“We’ve laid on food and drink for you all, take the opportunity to refresh yourselves. If you have any questions, just ask any of my people, we want you to feel welcome here. We’ve also set up accommodation for you and my adjutants Jax and Vic will show you where to go.”
He turned to Sirius, Natasha, Anastasia and me and said
“You had better come with me I think, we need a debrief and I need to tell you about what has been going on locally here. Please follow me.”
We looked at each other a little shocked I guess but as Lord Alexander turned away we followed him across the open area to a wide staircase rising through a mezzanine level to floors above. We walked through a warren of corridors, past offices where we could see people hunched over monitor screens intent on their tasks. Eventually we arrived at a large room with two armed guards outside.
“Welcome to my inner sanctum, I run the camp and the surrounding area from here. We have an area of a thousand square miles with thirty or so camps scattered through it. All of the camps are linked by microwave transmitter and the perimeter of our area is patrolled and monitored. Each camp is autonomous and self governing but each reports back to my central hub.” Lord Alexander informed us.
Sirius glanced around the room and replied
“You’ve got this pretty well organised, I can see that. How have you managed to develop those drones we saw, and more importantly, what else have you developed and how can we help?”
“I thought you might ask that. I’ve prepared a little tour for you, but before that I need to appraise you of our situation. You can probably see that our environment is quite different to the one you are used to. No desert up here, so your military tactics will need to be modified to cope with our climatic conditions. We also have to talk about the challenges that we face. We haven’t seen the Wyrms that you have down South and we are unlikely to given our swamp conditions. They aren’t suitable for the Wyrms to make their tunnels, but as I told you we have our own issues. These Hatchling Swarms that have been attacking our camps are only one of our problems. My researchers have asked the question, if these are indeed eggs, what is laying them?”
“That’s got to be pretty worrying. Whatever it is is going to be tougher to beat than the Hatchlings I’m sure!”
“That’s what we think, and it’s why we are working to bolster our defenses and to try to find more effective weapons with which to take on these threats. Come with me, and I’ll show you some of the things we are working on.”
We trooped out of the room and started down the staircase, passing the entrance floor and continuing down for what seemed like an eternity before reaching a set of the most massive blast doors I had ever seen. What could possibly warrant such heavy protection?
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