Life After the Bomb

Remember, mommy, I'm off to get a commie,
So send me a salami
and try to smile somehow,
I'll look for you when the war is over
an hour and a half from now...

~Tom Lehrer~ So Long, Mom (A WWIII Song)

Martial Arts was a priority and a few of the bunker got busy with learning the skill. After all, making sure that they had the confidence to be able to take on those who would be looking to cause them and their shelter-mates harm was a great boost to the morale of the bunker. Eventually, there would be an invasion, there was no doubt about it from VADM Nakamura's perspective and they wanted to be ready for it when it came. He was not clairvoyant but military strategy was something that he had learned at War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Invasion was a sound military tactic and frankly, incapacitating a nation's ability to wage war was the first opening move utilized in such a scenario. The second was incapacitating a nation's morale and what better way to do it than to subjugate the nation's populace?

Strategy and Tactical maneuvers were something that he could teach the shelter occupants down the road, for now, though he would teach them to condition their mind, their body and their fitness level.

Tamara Donner, on the other hand, loved recreation and decided to utilize the pool tables every chance she got. One of her favorite things to do was trick shots, which more oft than not resulted in a painful smack to her forehead with the cue ball after ricocheting off the gnome and impacting her in the head.

Jack and Morgana spent a lot of time in the robotics and sciences room making trait chips and nanites to utilize, because if they could manage to create a plumbot that would defend the complex, it would make it much tougher for invaders to be able to besiege the complex.

As platoon sergeant for Bravo Platoon, Jared Frio certainly took the time to get himself in top physical shape. It was necessary as he was going to be leading men into battle if the vice-admiral's hunches were correct. And from what he could deduce from the men who had served under Nakamura that the vice-admiral was rarely if ever wrong. But SGT Frio hoped that he was, because an invasion at this point would be incredibly hard on the Sunset Valley populace.

There was however one person that kept getting on the nerves of people who were in the bunker and that was Harriet Beaumont Sims-Roberts. A public affairs officer was essentially a no-load in a situation like this. The only time her services would be of use would be when the shooting stopped and a stronghold was consolidated on the entirety of the town. Maintaining the goodwill of the citizenry was crucial in that regards...but in this situation, unlike in Iraq/Afghanistan, the shooting had not even started yet nor had the situation been resolved. Other than providing counter-intelligence services which others could probably do a whole lot better and maintaining public relations with the populace which would instantly revert back to being suspected non-combatants when the men and women in the bunker retreated back to their safe haven, there was nothing that they could do at this point as far as public affairs. Other than telling them to keep their head down and not get in the way of bullets.

Nakamura knew that Harriet was bored, however she could do better than getting on the nerves of Gibbs who could think up of a baker's dozen things for her to do including donning a flak vest and enviro-suit and going out with them on their next reconnoiter if she didn't clam up her pie-hole. Check...mate...

Meg and Animal rested, as Animal had administrative tasks to do the next day and Meg well, continued to train in martial arts.

In the morning someone donned an envirosuit to go out and get the mail and pay bills. Heavens, Devil take the Internal Revenue Service (not even a nuclear strike can take out the IRS...they're like roaches): there's only two things that will be scurrying about on the surface of the earth after a nuclear apocalypse - c-ockroaches and IRS agents.

I don't know which is worse.