Saturday, March 9, 2013

The Tower's Fall

One of our patrols of zombie hunters got into a firefight with a small group of UAS operatives this morning. The enemy team was trying to leave the county at the time, and they were in a big enough hurry that they weren't as careful as they should have been about remaining unseen. Our people outnumbered them. It was a short fight that ended in three deaths on our side and total casualties--six--on theirs. 

It was just past dawn. About three minutes after the last bullet report faded, the water tower I used to sit on and pick off zombies from exploded. 

The base of the tower was rigged with charges, and the water still in the tank at the top did the rest of the work as the weakened and shredded base lost the ability to support it. We're not entirely sure what the goal of this attack was since we only used the emergency water outlets on the tower once in a great while. We haven't even used it as an observation platform for a long time now. It makes anyone sitting up there too easy a target. 

The tower fell, collapsing into the East-West connector, but while this is technically a large event (and I'm not at all downplaying the deaths of three of our people here, please understand) it doesn't do more than inconvenience us in a minor way. We don't use that route to the other side of town since there's no bridge half a mile past that point, and even if we did there are several easy alternate routes past the ruined section of road. 

The tower was tactically unimportant. As a psychological maneuver it's null. None of us needed it or cared about it. Even my own sentimentality only makes me feel vague regret. The UAS may not be operating on good information. That's the only explanation that makes sense to me. 

We're far more upset about losing three of our people. It's always a sad day when the community mourns the losses of brave and dedicated citizens. We will have a moment of silence across all New Haven today at noon, and their friends and families will hold small services for them. Some people don't see the point in funerals or memorials. I used to be one of them. But we all know the ceremonies aren't there for the dead. They exist for the living, to remind us of how painful our losses are. Of what we fight for. Taking the time and energy to construct a service dedicated to another is one of the ways we stay human. We mourn in many ways, but this helps us not only move past that pain, but to forever enshrine it with meaning. 

3 comments:

  1. That sounds an awful lot like a showy Wild West type of action, like some minor bureaucrat wanted to prove the his "plan" for dealing with the Union is the "best"; when all he's ever had to do with military planning is watching Westerns and playing tabletop wargames.

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  2. It doesn't make sense, but what if...

    What if the UAS is planning to just nit-pick all your resources? Sure, the tower wasn't used on a regular basis, but if push comes to shove, you knew the water was there. What if the UAS wants to eliminate all the small emergency stores then plan to come in for the devestating strike on the major store points? That's a lot of planning and resources being used, but it makes sense. Once the larger stoes are destroyed, there won't be any emergency stores left to rely on. A devious possibility...

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  3. I am sorry for the loss of your people Josh. I agree the memorials are a step towards our humanity, and are more important the further from the fall we get.

    The water tower was probably a first attempt at breaching defenses. I am sure things will be tightened up around New Haven. We have even had some of our own people try to break our defenses to test them. It helps.

    I remind the UAS- we will destroy what we have ourselves rather than let you have what we have built. We will not be acquired or enslaved. We have seen what you do to those you have taken. We have assisted those wishing to escape UAS camps.

    There may be a underground revolutionary force building in your ranks UAS. LOL, I would not sleep well if I were in your command levels. I would wonder who I could trust.

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