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report covers 12 September 2140 to 17 September 2140
Monday, 12 September 2140
weather: temperate (high 73° F), overcast, winds from the north.
The team was talking with Captain Scott Bauer and other members of Team Firebird, about the scheme to rescue Bluegrass women from the Mon Valley Authority.
In the evening, the team had dinner with several of the Firebird men, and some Kaskaskian locals. Radio contact information was exchanged between Booth and the Green Berets.
Tuesday, 13 September 2140
weather: drizzle or damp overcast from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Team R-36 began hovering back to Kentucky from Kaskaskia in the morning. At one point, while traveling along the Ohio River, their vehicle was shot at -- a musket ball left a mark on one of the window.
Wednesday, 14 September 2140
weather: fog and overcast in the morning and after sunset; rain and thunderstorms in the afternoon.
Back home in Mount Sterling by mid-afternoon. No notable news in Bluegrass country. The Tool Collective and other notable locals were invited to dinner at the Pagan Farm to discuss the plans. Forty or so Kaskaskian soldiers would arrive in three days or so to begin training the Bluegrass militia. The communities needed to form a government.
A couple of drums of bio-diesel, and various other traveling supplies, were loaded onto the truck. A new tilt was made for the cargo bed; a lot of changes to appearance were made with paint, sledgehammers and sheet metal. A simple gun mount was added over the cab. The new paint job is pretty much "gray camo".
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M35 cargo truck, with some holes; it's got a single spare tire, a simple tool kit, and a half-full tank of diesel fuel (capacity 189 liters, currently 90 liters). The locals at Mount Sterling donated two 200 liter barrels of diesel fuel, so you've got 490 liters = about 1600 kilometers range.
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The team packed along a half-dozen M1 helmets recovered from the raiders -- they were painted gray, but didn't have any insignia otherwise. The helmets provide 5 points of armor, and weigh 1.6 kg including the liner, chin strap, etc.
Thursday, 15 September 2140
weather: fog and drizzle in the morning; rain in the afternoon ... 11mm total rain.
Early in the day the team left Mount Sterling in their truck, bound for the Monongahela River. They drove up onto the Cumberland Plateau, past the site of the ambush, and most of the way to Charleston, West Virginia. The road had been heavily used by the MVA raiders .. fuel trucks back and forth, and the scrap tank ... so it was in reasonably good condition. The weather, of course, made everything a bit muddy.
red-and-yellow dot is the site of a nuclear attack during the Atomic War
Friday, 16 September 2140
weather: fog and drizzle in the morning; rain and a thunderstorm in the afternoon.
An hour or so after setting out, the team came to the trading post at Charleston. A rickety dock on the Kanawha River, and a highway intersection, justified a tiny trading post (about like this). An old one-legged man was sitting near the door; a couple of steel barrels with greasy hoses were supported on a wooden platform. A few people, children and dogs were out and about, working in the fields or watching warily.The whole community numbered less than 20 people.
The old man did some trading with the team, including selling them some bio-diesel (at a fairly high price, 25 cents per liter) and a "Welcome to West Virginia" coonskin cap; there were two 200 liter drums available.
50 cents complete with embroidered patch.
He also told them about an MVA spy, Donald Rathstein ... who was in fact riding off on a horse at that very moment! The old man cackled and said, "He's a no-good sort, and as long as he's not killed around here, we don't care." The team quickly loaded their purchases and drove north a few kilometers.
Not sure about Donald's last name -- Pete, did you get it written down?
Benefiel and Turner hopped off the truck, which drove onwards; the two Project members hid in the brush, waiting for Rathstein. He rode into view, and Turner shot him ... well, three shots were required in fact, and the horse was also wounded.
The two Project men called their friends on the radio, and went over to check Rathstein's body and to kill the wounded horse.
Belongings: .58" cap-and-ball musket, bag with 50 or so Minie balls, 50 or so percussion caps, black powder in a powder horn, big knife, 75 cents in various small coins, saddle, saddle blanket, forage bag with nasty food.
Eric Turner sort-of butchered the horse ... they ended up with about 20 kg of meat. Both the horse and Rathstein were rolled off a cliff.
Continuing along the remains of Interstate 79, the team made good time -- the highway was wide and flat, and fairly well-traveled; fording a few creeks was about the only delay. About 200 kilometers went by in about 6 hours, bringing them to the outskirts of Bridgeport at about 4 p.m. (in heavy rain).
The Morrow team observed the town with binoculars for a bit. Only 250 people lived there, including about 60 soldiers; most of the Ancient ruins were uninhabited, filled with sand from floods, and overgrown with trees and brush.
The piers of an Ancient highway bridge crossed the West Fork River, with a telephone line running from pier to pier. A sort of telephone booth stood on the far bank, next to the ferry landing. The ferry operated on a cable, winched from a pulley next to the fort. The fort was a low palisade, with a large yard for vehicles to park in.
A jeep-ish vehicle or two were seen in the town, but transport otherwise involved horses -- or the train. The railway line from the north along the river ended at this town; power and telephone lines followed the railway track. No antennas were seen anywhere.
Eric snuck closer to the fort, and climbed a utility pole to look into the yard -- a truck, a jeep, several motorbikes, a stable with horses, and a cute lil' scrap tank (more like a "scrap technical") with a 75mm gun mounted on it.
Jeff and the team decided there wasn't much to see or do here, and drove back to the interstate and continued north. Several kilometers before the Tygart Valley River ferry, they pulled off the road and made camp. Lonely farms and cabins were scattered in the runs (a local term for creeks) and ridges; the sound of dogs, people chopping firewood, and other rural noises carried to the team's camp. The rain let up a bit after sunset.
The horse-meat wasn't too good.
Saturday, 17 September 2140
weather: overcast and cool, with rain from 3 p.m. until sunset; fog in the evening. The waxing moon is 36% full; moonrise was about 1:21 p.m., moonset was about 10:37 p.m.
Waking up at sunrise, the team ate a quick meal of LRP rations and got underway. Driving towards the ferry, they met an odd tracked bulldozer (or perhaps a scrap tank) headed south. The tracked vehicle was moving surprisingly fast (about 30 kph) and throwing up a lot of mud; the crew waved grimly as they passed Team R-36's truck.
A kilometer or so later, the team came to the ferry, which was unsurprisingly on the near side of the river. For $2 they were carried across; the ferryman and his assistant didn't seem to find them at all unusual.
By noon, the roaring, mud-covered truck was approaching Morgantown. As with Bridgeport, most of the pre-War town was abandoned and in ruins; several old masonry factories and warehouses along the river were in use as armories, training centers, and store houses of the military. A fort is located on top of Dorsey Knob, at the edge of town; another team (60 soldiers) was posted here. The former WVU Coliseum was sometimes used to stage gladiatorial games; more often, demolition derbies, cattle and slave auctions, and other less-homicidal spectacles were presented for the entertainment of the townsfolk.
A half-dozen trucks, along with the usual "rough going" jeep-ish vehicles and some motorbikes were seen parked here and there. Dozens of railway cars -- mostly very rusty and unused -- stood on the yard tracks; a small shed housed a couple of steam locomotives.This was the northern end of the railway.
500 persons lived in this town.
Three roads led roughly north:
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Interstate 79 crossed the river northwest on its Ancient bridge, with barricades and watchtowers on it. Rubble to dump on enemy watercraft stood ready to heave over the side.
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US 48 lead northeast, to the former bridge near Mont Chateau.
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Dam Road led almost due north, towards the Cheat Lake Dam; the power lines followed this road.
There didn't seem to be an easy way to look into the fort atop Dorsey Knob, but the team was beginning to get the "feel" of the place. One of the old factories or armories might hold some cannons or more tanks, but not much to worry about.
While passing through Morgantown, a "motorcycle cop" pulled the truck over and charged them the fee for entering the nation for purposes of trade. A scruffy piece of paper with a faint ink stamp was the proof that they'd paid the fee. The team quickly left town.
About 12 kilometers of the best roads the team had seen outside of Kaskaskia brought them to Cheat Lake. Cheat Road led down to the lake shore, about where an old steel bridge had once been. A couple of self-propelled ferries worked here, carrying vehicles over (and along) the lake. Another $2 ferry fare.
During the twenty minutes or so the team spent on the ferry, they observed Mont Chateau with their eyes, laser rangefinder and binoculars -- they were about 1200 meters away. There was a dock with three motorboats near the lodge, patrolled by a bored-looking guard wearing a helmet; and a small guardhouse on the lake-edge road, with three helmeted guards.
Once ashore again, the truck drove up to the former freeway, and looked south to where the "main entrance" was. Another small guardhouse stood by that road, too, with three guards in helmets.
Jeff and the team decided that a night-time reconnaissance would be a good idea, and drove north along the former freeway -- this wide road, too, was in excellent (although unpaved) condition. After 8 kilometers, they drove slowly past the Cheat Lake Dam-- a former parking lot near the dam held a half-dozen tar paper and cinder block barracks-type buildings.
Piles of rusty machines, spools of utility wire, and a stack of wooden utility poles made the industrial nature of this place clear. There were guard shacks on the roof, and at both ends of the dam; probably 30 guards at most, with no visible cannons or machine guns. The team had been told that 50 or 100 technicians and their families lived in the powerhouse. Various small chimneys gave off smoke; lights shone behind dusty windows.
A few kilometers north, in Pennsylvania, they pulled onto an old side road and made their camp. Fog settled in, and the partial moon set before 11 p.m. ... the team (minus Begay, left with the truck) crept on foot back to the Mon Chateau resort beginning at 9 p.m.; 14 kilometers or so following roads and trails took them a bit less than 2 hours to travel.
Jake and Paula set up the team's MAG58 on a rock near the lakeshore, about a kilometer north of the lodge. Jeff and Turner crept into the fenced compound, and peeked in the back windows of the various garages uphill from the lodge. The parking lot held several automobiles and motorcycles; the garages held some more, plus a very large scrap tank in the last garage. Pairs of guards patrolled the grounds, wearing great coats and M1 helmets. There was probably a "Team" of 60 soldiers assigned to guard the area, with 1/3 of them on duty at any one time. Barracks and officer housing stood outside the compound, alongside the lakefront road leading to the ferry.
A few Kerns and Majors, and maybe the General, were carousing in the lodge. Some women were present; Jeff got rather hot under the collar when he heard a woman shriek at one point. Turner calmed him down, and the two Project men returned north, gathered up Jake and Paula, and returned to their truck about 2 a.m.
The garage is where the large scrap tank is waiting.
As seen from the northwest. It's 75 meters long and 20 meters wide.
Dash-and-dot lines are fencing; simple dotted line is the power line leading to the dam.
Piers in the lake are from the Interstate bridge and the Cheat Road bridge, both fallen long ago.
Cheat Road runs into the former Interstate a kilometer or so off the west side of the map.
On the the next episode!
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