FACTIONS

NATION-STATES
World Enclaven of Enclaves; Castes, Classes and Ranks
United New Republics
Atomicus Faith Imperium (Empire of Atom).
Federated Networked TekVaults, the FNT (TekVault Federation).
United Semiautonomous Settlements of DC (District of Centralia). The USSDC.

NATION-STATES?
Empire of the Greater Ape (Caesar's Legions, Caesar's Legionary Empire).
Triple-Nations of the Republic of Dave, the Commonwealth of Deidre and the Kingdom of Darrel. (Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest in any particular order)
Liberated Ghoul Underworld Alliance, the LGUA.
Camelot.
Peoples Freedom Loving Truly Democratic Republic of Centralia (NeoSoviet Republic of Centralia)
Clansfolk
Tribals

ORDERS
Orders of Steel such as the Brotherhood of Steel, Sisterhood of Steel, Outcasts of Steel, Seekers of Steel
Orders of the Way of the Light.
Orders of Camelot: Knights Templar, Knights Hospitaller, Knights Amazonie, Knights of the Round Table, Knights Questius and others!
Orders of Atomicus (Orders of Atom)
Children of Atom

ORDERS?
Thirteen of Thirteen Powerlords; 13 x each of the Beastlords, the Buglords, the Borglords, the Robolords, the Armalords, the Skylords, the Sealords, the Androlords and the Mutantlords. Then there are three x 13 of the Warlords, Tecnolords and Towerlords. Above them all are the Overlords.

OTHERS!?
Bandits
Gangers
Marauders
Slavers
Ravers
Regulators
Rangers
Hunters
Cannibals
Mercenaries
Syndicaters
Gladiators
Gun-Slingers
Rustlers
Others?


SPECIALS?
Degens
Ghoulified of ghouls, semighouls, subghouls, demighouls, zhouls, rhouls and others
Trogs
Metahumans
Superhumans
Psykers
Metamutants
Supermutants, zentaurs, zentrols etc.
Mutated beasties
Mutated plants
Rogue robots, androids, cyborgs etc.
Raiders
Zetans
Greytans
Votons
Sivertans
Daleks
Cybermen
Autons (Nestines)
Martians
Venetians
Dinosaurs
Dragons
Beastfolk
Kraken
Vampires
Others?

EDITING ADDITIONS WILL BE DONE IN FUTURE

0001
OTHER

The big heavy truck, 4x6 drive, thundered along the degraded secondary highway as a 12.7mm calibre heavy machinegun was shooting away from its roof-turret. Bandits scattered in the distance as the bullets struck but one moved too slow and died, his crude body-armour proving no good against the powerful weapon. Other armatrucks followed the first being mostly of the one kind but there two smaller ones and one hulking bigger one, there being five of the medium sized trucks. Battlecars led and tailed the convoy as a rocket-grenade bounced off the special gridded side of an armatruck and exploded dramatically but harmlessly. That is except to an unlucky radroach.

The bandits had clearly underestimated their ability to take on the convoy, were probably desperate for resources. They were close to NeoWashington, District of Centralia, and close to one of the major settlements of the United Semiautonomous Settlements of DC. That was Towertown based on three huge, low hulking towers that had somehow survived Doomsday very much intact. Some of those in the convoy could even see the distant towers though not clearly in the dimness of the daylight. Before they reached Towertown, they would get to an outpost. There would be USS Guardsmen there along with some petty officials, merchants, artisans and others, even a couple of families.

Light rain began to fall from swirling grey clouds coming in fast. There was a flash of lightening. A deathclaw screamed a territorial challenge to other deathclaw packs but thankfully the beast sounded like it was a good distance away. Anyway, despite their berserker reputation, deathclaws were too smart to take on an armoured armed convoy. Even the biggest vehicle shook lightly as gusts of wind struck the area.

Then it happened. The machine came out of nowhere and screamed through the sky. A flying-saucer of sorts with a thick trail of black smoke being left behind. The strange spaceship shuddered visibly and then it was gone over a ridge and out of sight. Seconds later the ground shook as an explosion, mostly dark brown smoke, rose high into the air.

In surprise the convoy ground to a halt for a moment and the bandits fled away while they had the chance to do so with out being shot at. Then the convoy started up again. People would be sent out to investigate but the convoy was too important to risk. It carried people, livestock, seedlings, food, tools, weapons, processed materials and a lot of salvaged stuff. Amongst the people were some specialists, rare and much needed in Towertown to help with the sickness causing so much trouble there. No, the convoy had to move onwards and it did so.


0002
JOHNNIE

The zetan saucerboat was largely destroyed but the emergency survival section had survived mostly intact. The three altered humans, the android, the alien, the dog, the cat and the bird came out of their safety-globes sticky but alive. The jelly like substance had protected them though in an uncomfortable fashion because the devices had been designed for zetans to use. Andy the android got into a body-cubicle to scrub her naked body clean. Johnnie waited while the girl, Lilly, used another cubicle. He cleaned off the big cyborg-eagle of the jelly gunk as best he could. The bird, Skyflash, pecked his cheek softly with appreciation at his efforts. The big hound, Direbite, and the big cat, Clawsbiter, was scrubbed by the young woman Catharina. They had to leave the saucerboat as soon as they could because the zetans would seek either to recapture them or to destroy them. They could not deactivate the the security emergency beacon now leading the aliens to them. The alien with them was no zetan; he was a shapeshifting voton, a distant species cousin to a zetan.

When the cleaning was going on, those who were ready began to take out emergency survival equipment and supplies from saucerboat lockers. Some things they could use, some reluctantly, and others they could not. Some they would take with them to trade with, to show to human scientists if they could find any friendly ones. They also needed to warn locals that not only was the Zetan Seminomadic Empire planning to invade the devastated world while it was still weak, that there were traitors who were forming an alliance with them. The zetans were also inviting other aliens to join them in the coming invasion.

In dull grey emergency survival armour suits, ESASTs, the three humans, the zoton and the android were soon outside with backpacks except for the girl for they were too big and heavy for her. The big dog had a cleverly adjusted backpack on his back but the cat and bird could not carry such. They had disintegrator-guns of three different kinds, a single railgun-rifle, two minidrone robots, food rations, water, medical items, drugs, super-drugs, a small mattercator, tools, other supplies and some special devices. They also had a double barreled shotgun, with some 12-gauge shotgun-shells, as taken from an alien locker with mostly junk stolen from humans. From the same locker they had also gained a good quality compass, some maps, a paperback crime fiction novel, some water proof matches, a holotape that had mysterious contents, a pair of six sided dice, a big combat-knife in a sheaf and some coins.

Yet as they crouched close to a jagged rocky outcrop and looked out over the Wastelands, it became clear that the world had changed a great deal since any of them had been there and not for the good.


0003
JOHNNIE

"So they finally did it, they finally blew up the world." Handsome hard eyed Johnnie sniffed the air with his enhanced sense of smell. "There are rather dirty humans close by and they are armed. I can smell the gunpowder. I can also smell freshly spilled blood. Who and what ever they are, they have recently been in a fight. I suspect that they did not come out the winners but I could be wrong."

Johnnie was not often wrong about such things. He had fought in various small wars for the Zetan Seminomadic Empire that was based in both great motherships and greater orbital-colonies. The zetans did not choose to live on worlds but only to exploit or raid them. They were hated, feared and despised by many other alien species for good reason. Catharina had been also a scout-soldier and in his unit. They had discovered Lilly by accident in a holding pen on the mothership they dwelt in and, learning that the girl was listed for termination, decided to escape and to save her. They brought with them also the platoon fighting mascots of the bird and the dog. Others had escaped also in two other saucerboats but during the escape the three small spacecraft had become separated from one another.

Catharina was clone-born on the mothership and had never been to the Earth. Lilly was born not on Earth but in a space colony struggling to survive on-in the Moon where she had been captured and then put into suspended animation, so she was only days older now than she was back then, in any real sense. The android was a captured voton made replicant. The dog and cat were also clone-born but in another mothership, they being captured in a Zetan Factional Fight. The voton had been captured in a zetan raid on a voton outpost-colony, the votons preferring to dwell on worlds, be they planets or moons. Johnnie was born on the Earth but before Doomsday. He did not even know that Doomsday had happened but even in the growing darkness it was obvious something big and terrible had taken place.

According to the coordinates he had directed the saucerboat computer-pilot to take them to, they should be close to his old home. Except he now had the bad feeling that much much more time had passed since his abduction then he had previously worked out. This was because of a whole set of reasons such as being suspended animation for an unknown amount of time, relative time distortion of hyperdrive travel and his own new expanded life span that brought with it a new perspective on time.

Then he saw in the distance two great low hulking towers high on a large hill that seemed oddly familiar to him. It was the only local landmark that seemed so.

0004
JOHNNIE

The group moved carefully through the broken landscape, over what had once been peaceful, beautiful hills covered with forest. They came upon shattered buildings, rusting hulks of vehicles, decaying streets and a large fading sign of CAPTAIN COSMOS, a much beloved television series of the early 1950s. So it was that Johnnie realized that what ever great disaster had happened, had done so only a few years after he had been abducted. The war against the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain, Japan, Argentina and other countries had ground to a halt. Dark whispers circulated of amazing new super weapons being developed by the Axis Powers, especially the Germans. Yet the Alliance had also been busy on its own super weapons. Both sides seemed to be undertaking secret, often disturbing experiments to create weapons of mass destruction, deadly new war-machines, super-soldiers and other such tricks. Johnnie had been almost old enough to be conscripted but he had been so brilliant and such a high achiever academically that the British Commonwealth Empire had already decided he would be a scientist. His desire to be a poet was ignored.

In the early 1950s experimental rocketships had sent people to the Moon. Monsters called supermutants had been used by the Axis to attack Alliance forces in Normandy. Axis V3 rockets had struck parts of North America but with only relatively small explosive impact and much poor aiming. Reliable public sightings of flying-saucers and other UFOs had taken place around the world in increasing numbers. Automatic rifles began to be used by soldiers on both sides. Flying ships called aeroships, were first launched by the Alliance. Stalin was forced to give over Soviet secret research to the Western part of the Alliance in return for secrets from them. Television sets were fairly common but most people had to go to TV-Clubs or watch TV in pubs or other such places. Many people around the world now lived in underground bunker complexes. Big band music was becoming less popular as new music called pop-swing was coming to be trendy. Hemlines for women went above the knees to safe yet more resources for the constant war effort. Rationing and the black market were now a way of life with many folk not having experienced anything else. Despite the prolonged, slowed down war, the first Dizzyland Park was opened in California in the USA. The first German super-submarines, or U-ships, were launched. The Red Plague first appeared in Central-West Africa. There were many other such developments.

They went into a big old double level house that seemed less destroyed than others. They found a basemant that had a hidden entrance, thanks to Lilly's special psychic abilities. The zetans had wanted to terminate Lilly because they realized her very strong psychic-psionic abilities would make her impossible to control. Zetans never fully trusted each other let alone what they considered to be aliens. The basemant turned out to be some kind of sealed up bomb shelter. There was nobody there so clearly who ever had built or bought it had not got to use it.


0005
JOHNNIE

The basemant shelter was only basically furnished, fitted and decorated. There were three wide double-bunks, four basic armchairs, a television set, three big wall-lockers, three big foot-lockers underneath the double-bunks, a cramped toilet-room with a chemical toilet and a cramped bathroom with a shower-stall, tap-sink and a mirror fronted bathroom cabinet. The lockers held a mishmash of survival gear, family possessions, collectables and a stack of assorted magazines. A newspaper lay on the bottom bunk of one of the double-bunks. In one foot-locker was a standardized military version of a Thompson submachinegun, a fragmentation hand-grenade (pineapple), some spare ammo for the submachinegun, a single barreled mono-shot shotgun using 12-gauge shotgun shells, some shotgun shells, a flare-pistol, some flare-pistols flare-shells, two big survival-knives in sheaves and a short Japanese Samurai sword of fine make complete with its own scabbard. There were some odd devices and other features around the big shelter chamber.

"The television set looks more advanced than the ones I remember." Johnnie sat down in an armchair that was comfortable by his standards but then again he was used to tough conditions. "That looks like an audio-visual cassette machine of some kind. Perhaps it plays and records. Time for coffee."

Zetans generally did not treat their puppets with any great generosity but they had learned to provide their humans and some other humanoids with basic strong coffee, dark chocolate, beer and a few other basic luxuries. These basic luxuries were given as rewards and taken away as punishments. Normal rations of water, sweet-water, sour-water, grey-tea, breadbiscuits, foodbars, food-mash and food-cream were dull flavoured if not awful flavoured. The android, Andy, made the coffee with out complaint. Lilly sat in another armchair with the big cat curled up in her lap and the dog at her feet. The bird was perched on the back of Johnnie's chair.

Catherina yawned and stretched as she sat in another armchair. "The minidrones are keeping guard but I doubt anything could slip past you two and your powers."

Johnnie began to examine the newspaper he had taken from the double-bunk. "So a cease fire was called but it was always precarious. Both sides gained A-bombs and then H-bombs. Then they gained H-warhead long range rockets. The mysterious Havenlanders and Clanlanders threatened to join the war on the side of the Alliance if war went on. Both the Havenlanders and Clanlanders proved to have weapons and other tricks that neither the Alliance or the Axis had. The Japanese Empire crumbled and so was no longer in the Axis but the Axis gained a treaty with the dreaded Zaztek Empire of South America. Giant squids, dragons and other monsters began to be sighted in increasing numbers by large numbers of reliable witnesses and recorded evidence was plentiful. The flying-saucers kept coming but seemed to have gained enemies in the form of flying-cigars and glowing translucent looking flying-spheres. That would be votons and centroids but of course the humans did not know that. Aaahhh, BigFoot in North America, Yetis in the Himalayas, Nessi in Loch Ness in Scotland. New kinds of jet aircraft, helicopters, hovercraft, computers... but most people in the Alliance and the Axis are poor, are struggling to survive, are being rationed to in almost every way possible. There has been emergency military rule around much of the world since the start of the Second Great War to 'end all wars'."

Johnnie paused to hand the comics and child fun section of the newspaper to Lilly. She was soon engrossed in reading it though she did not understand all of the references.

He frowned. "TekCorps? VaultTek, WestTek, RoboTek, AeroTek, MediTek, WorldTek and others. I see, WorldTek was the umbrella organization, the mother corporation to the other corporations. The TekCorps rose in the USA with new technologies and quickly swallowed up many older corporations such as Ford, General Motors, Coca-cola and lots of others. They spread their tentacles through out the Alliance but staid strongest in the USA. They did not manage to get into the Havenlands, the Clanlands, the Zaztek Empire or a few other places despite support from the US Federal Government. VaultTek became the construction of the LifeVaults, huge hidden underground bunker complexes to save society in case there was a restart of fighting and weapons of mass destruction, WMDs, were used. They also built smaller ShelterVaults along with specialized TekVaults such as RDVaults and WarVaults. Here, whispers of something called ArkVaults even bigger and more secretive than the LifeVaults."

They had mugs of coffee, dry cracker biscuits and baked beans from a can. They even had some milk-powder made into milk and some dark ration-chocolate. Lilly was soon sleeping on a bottom bunk curled up with the big tough cat. Catherina and Johnnie took turns using the cramped shower but were careful not to use to much of the water despite the water recycling system being there.


0006
JOHNNIE

The man who had built the basemant shelter himself had been a fairly high skilled thief of hitech hardware and software as developing with the new electronics industry. There was a small mainframe in one of the wall-lockers and a big metal encased terminal on a desk next to an electromechanical typewriter. Desk drawers opened to reveal stationary but also large black data-diskettes or 'floppies'. The mainframe held a large hard-drive and the terminal a small one. The technologies were primitive compared to zetan ones.

The computer hard-drives, like most of the magazines, were filled with black-white and coloured pictures of naked or seminaked women, of experimental 'wonder-machines', of new aircraft, of VIPs including beautiful women celebrities in low cut, knee length dresses of great expense. The man also had followed basketball avidly and had a large collection of baseball cards, some of them quite rare. There were many bits of odd information.

What the group most needed, that is information about the catastrophe and what had happened since, was not there of course. Information did hint strongly at growing tensions between the new Alliance and Axis as the Havenlanders, Clanlanders and Japanese joined the Alliance while the Zazteks joined the Axis, the Zazteks having absorbed Argentina into their empire. Then from beneath, from the Underworld, had come the shocking discovery of not just the Underworld itself but of at least four large, powerful and exotic empires. They were the Chinajaya, the Romanards, the Casteori and the Atlantisans. Most astonishing in some ways was that the Casteori and Atlantisans were highly intelligent, self-aware nonhumans. The Atlantisans were human like in many ways but the Casteori were at most distant cousins, genetically speaking.

The Romanards, Chinajaya and Atlantisans joined the Alliance while the Casteori joined the Axis. It was not long after this that the Enclaven was revealed in its existence in the Underworld as an ancient oppressive force of strict castes, classes and ranks along with exotic weapons. These were humans and nonhumans. The Enclaven joined the Axis and began to transform the Axis, to absorb it.

Johnnie was not sure that he believed any of it. It sounded like nonsense and there was no real proof of any Underworld in the computer or the magazines or the single newspaper. The video-cassettes turned out to be some newsreels, documentaries and movies but none of them helped to resolve the situation. Still they were entertaining to watch and they helped to show Lilly, Catherina, Andy and Zolesh the voton what the Earth had once been like.

Zolesh had been sleeping since they found the shelter, being curled up tight and cat like in a corner with the dog. The voton did not find human beds to be comfortable and did not like sleeping lying straight.

Wow. Interesting format

Thanks for the feedback, mom=My brother! :thumbsup:

0007
OTHER

The bandits knew they were on the bottom of the heap when it came to the dangerous groups out in the Wastelands proper. The failed ambush against the USSDC convoy on its way to Towertown had not only cost them valuable ammunition but two deaths, a wounding and a big loss in morale. The bandit leader, one Goy Americat, knew his leadership was on thin ice because it had been his decision to try to ambush the convoy despite the opposition of others in the bandit gang. Now he stood, tall and skinny muscular with crude tattoos and scars, looking around the group of houses. His hope was that they would find some hidden place amongst the buildings that nobody else had found; hopefully a nuclear shelter full of special preserved goodies, including some nice weapons, some good tasting food and maybe even some sharp biting drugs. Not that he really expected to find anything like that. Doomsday had taken place about a hundred years ago and lots of people had been through the area seeking salvage, some with sophisticated devices, or even special trained dogs, to help them.

Centralia, the District of Centralia, was to be the symbol for a new age of world prosperity, peace and progress. The Alliance and the Axis were still in a cold war status but traded together through neutral third-party nations. Both the Alliance and the Axis had colonies on-in the Moon. The discovery of the Lunar Underworld had come as another big shock. The Grand Canols of Mars were real. Venus was a prehistoric jungle like world complete with dinosaurs, dragons and other big beasties. Inside the Moon were human and nonhuman peoples including some rather dangerous ones. Nobody knew how the humans had gotten to Luna, not even the humans that had dwelt there for many thousands of years. So the Alliance had decided to create something new to show that they could also be something astounding. Centralia was a great big artificial floating island east of the mainland of the USA.

Centralia was a domain of robots, of hovercars, of flivvers, of status-capsules, of basic androids, of roboremotes, of aeroships, of aeroboats, of vertibirds, of protective domes, of archeologies, of 3DTV, of super monorail trains and much else. Except the whole lot had only been half completed when Doomsday had come. Goy Americat's grandparents, on his thuggish father's side, had survived in the Upper Subways of Centralia where trains had still run on double tracks. The Upper Subways, basemant levels, basemant shelters, so called bottle-shelters and other such places had saved the lives of millions of people. Now most of the Upper Subways were overrun with ghoulified creatures and other beasties including trogs, malformed humans, and rogue robots infected by the berserker computer virus. Much of the smashed utopia of Centralia was just as dangerous, if not more so. The surface of Centralia was in some ways worse for there were the flying beasties, the doomstorms and other threats that the Subways sheltered people from.

He looked from building to building in his much patched hornlizard leather body-armour that was part of his merc adventure type outfit. Hornlizard leather armour was as bullet resistant as kevlar but was heavier and clumsier to use but kevlar was far harder to obtain. He held a lever-action rifle, which would have been more impressive if it was not so worn out and if he had held more than the five bullets that he had left. As it was he was not sure about the quality of the bullets.

When he heard the sound of vertibird atomic motors and antigrav-rotors in action, he crouched down into a hollow in the ground. Then he gaped as overhead roared a dozen small scout-attack vertibirds followed by medium and large general purpose machines. It was a big air-convoy made bigger as a much bigger aeroship lumbered overhead along with smaller sleeker aeroboats, chunky aerobarges, helicopters, monoplanes, some biplanes and some exotic looking flying-machines such as aerosaucers, aerorockets, flying-boats and even one big helium airship. The other bandits were at least smart enough to hide. He saw the symbols emblazoned on the flying-machines and remembered hearing of the Orders of Steel being the Brotherhood of Steel, the Seekers of Steel, the Sisterhood of Steel and others, most of which he had forgotten the names or or had never learned of in the first place.

The Outcasts of Steel were already in the DC but they kept to themselves, to the territories that they guarded jealously from others. The Outcasts of Steel had power armour suits, had energy and automatic projectile weapons, had missile and rocket launchers, had armed-armoured war-machines, had security and military class robots and had a heavily fortified main base and outposts ringed with roboremote weapon turrets. Goy Americat stared in wonder at the air-convoy and decided that compared to this lot, that the Outcasts of Steel were not much to deal with at all.

He was still wondering when one of his 'loyal' comrades slipped up behind him and neatly cut Goy Americat's throat, killing him almost instantly.


0008
JOHNNIE

Johnnie used the two remote cameras on top of the house that still remained standing. He had come to realize that it was no accident that the building was a good deal more intact than others around it for it had hidden reinforcing bulkheads and armouring through out its structure. If it had failed it was only because it had been struck by overwhelming force. The television set turned out to be a fine 2D monitor for the cameras that showed the amazingly big air-convoy passing overhead. Even the underground chamber that they were in shuddered softly.

It was the shuddering that shook something loose and which caused one of the wall lockers to suddenly slide backwards to reveal a square hatch in the floor. After the air-convoy had flown over, was gone into the distance, and video recordings had been taken from the two cameras, Johnnie led Catherina carefully down a ladder to a larger, more sophisticated bunker hidden below the shelter. It seemed that the basemant shelter was a decoy, a give away to distract people from even searching for anything else.

The man, woman and two children lay in sleeper-capsules along with a poodle dog in another. There was a big set of machines operating smoothly. A protectron robot was in its rest-recharge bay. There were bookcases full of leather jacketed books, racks of holotapes, a holotape projector, a big colour 3DTV-set, a dining alcove, a kitchen alcove, a door to a small bathroom with toilet, a door to a separate toilet-room, a laundry alcove, a workshop alcove and some other facilities in alcoves or small antechambers. The super virtual reality capsulechairs were very impressive as was the single regenerative-rejuvenation healing capsule or RRHC.

Something had gone wrong with the security program so Johnnie was able to stop the protectron security robot before the metallic humanoid could stride a little clumsily out of its bay.

It was soon concluded that the small family and the pet dog could be brought back to full living status and health with only a very small amount of brain damage that could be healed with the use of the RRHC. It would take a fair amount of time and Johnnie wanted to explore, to see if there were any more secrets to be found. He also wanted to investigate how many useful resources were in the bunker and what valuable information that he could find. Now they had the both the basemant shelter and the bigger, more sophisticated bunker and their contents to use.

It was Lilly who warned the others that there was something very strange about the four humans in their sleeper-capsules. She stood next to the capsule with the other girl child in it and she seemed to 'sense' something that caused her to frown in consternation. Then she spoke to Catherina. "Not good, not good at all. Do not wake them up. They look like, smell like, sound like, feel like humans but no... they have no conscious. My mummy taught me about that word and other words like it."

"They are some kind of clones but not the standard types we have encountered before." Johnnie used a zetan device to scan-probe the other girl. "Yes, they are actually a kind of zetan-human hybrid clone disguised as humans. They must have been used to replace the real family because they are only about a year old, that is not including the century of suspended animation. I wonder why this was done. It seems to be a rather elaborate ploy."

So there was to be no awakening of the people in the sleeper-capsules.


0009
OTHER

The USSDC did have a relatively small professional defense force but it relied largely on settlement based Guard Forces and militia units along with some special duties units such as the Highways Guard, the Rivers Guard and the Air Guard. So it was Guardsmen of the Towertown Guard that went out seeking the crashed alien saucerboat, taking with them some local scouts, a scientist and a field reporter for the TOWERTOWN CHRONICLE. They went on foot with dogs, not wanting to attract attention with the use of vehicles and not wanting to ride horses or other animals in the darkness. They might have waited for the coming of dawn except the slowly, steadily approaching storm meant that they needed to try and find the saucerboat while they had the chance. The heavy rains, thunder, lightening and winds wold come too soon and with it flash flooding. There could also be hail and sleet.

The group was also ordered to destroy any threats to the settlement such as zetan soldiers or zetan drone-robots. They moved through torn up hills until they came to an area of houses. The decaying highway where the stupid bandits had attacked the big road convoy was close so they were careful to check for the bandits. They were passing along a kind of seminatural gulley with smashed bits of metal sloping down one side, when the huge air convoy passed overhead. They crouched low and stared up in shock as the huge fleet of different flying-machines kept passing overhead be they vertibirds, helicopters, aeroships, the big airship and many others.

The commander of the small expeditionary group was both shocked and disturbed. The Outcasts of Steel were one things, having come from the US Mainland and Washington DC, the ruins of the capital city of what had been the United States of America being all of North America except for Canada that was part of the British Commonwealth Empire, the BCE. The direction of the air convoy suggested these Orders of Steel had come from the same direction. There were only a few hundred kilometres between the western coast of Centralia and the eastern coast of Delaware. Such a huge air convoy could have made the journey in good time.

Was it some kind of invasion? As big as the air convoy was, it was hardly large enough to carry a force able to conquer Centralia and all of its Factions. The USSDC was actually one of the lesser powers of Centralia, hugging the western coast as it did. More powerful were the Centralian Enclaven of the World Enclaven that had its home territories of the Centralian Enclave, the New Centralian Republic and the Centralian Colony of the Atomicus Faith Imperium. Apart from that there were some Warlords, some tribal domains, the strange joke of the Triple-Nations of the Republic of Dave, the Commonwealth of Deidre and the Kingdom of Darrel along with the warped medieval madness of Camelot. There were various Orders active on-in the great artificial floating island such as the Orders of the Way of the Light, the OWL, the Children of Atom and the Followers of Doomsday. Of course there were other factions but they were not known or only poorly known to the peoples of the USSDC.

They found Goy Americat's dead body and soon figured that the bandit leader had lost the favour and support of his comrades in a very drastic fashion. The body was stripped almost naked and some flesh had been cut from it, probably to be fed to bandit dogs or even to be eaten by the bandits who would only do such if they were desperate. Only the cannibals chose to eat other people as a way of life, as part of a religion even.

The storm was coming in faster and stronger than predicted so they were forced to return to Towertown.