2 months later
I managed to get everything done, finally, and everything seems to be in order. When I went to the Australian Hive Base and revealed myself to the community, I was expecting many things. Mostly what I got was fervent thanks, cheering, and loyalty for protecting the little community that they had set up from the Stank Gum raiders. As a result, I had just short of 500 people ready and willing to do basically whatever I said at the word go.
So I decided to do something I had wanted to do for a while ever since I watched a TV show about it, and that was drive massive road trains around the Australian outback. Also learn to drive stick, but that could come later, much later.
I had the Fab rovers construct three massive road trains. The Prime mover is by the standards of the 20th century nothing short of miraculous, what with actually being a diesel electric similar to an actual train rather than a regular car. For the uninitiated, diesel electric means that the engine is actually running a generator rather than actually connected to the wheels and the generator sends power to electric motors.
This let my prime movers be all wheel drive which as you can tell, is super cool, for me at least. All that power allows for the trucks to be massive, 15 meters long with a cab more akin to the bridge of a ship, with bunk space for the "bridge crew" and a restroom and fridge for cold snacks. There's also coffee. Drink the coffee. Coffee is your friend. And there's enough room for steep stairs that lead to the top of the prime mover so that the crew can get on top of the road train and move around. Under the stairs is a massive gas tank that holds almost 10000 liters of diesel fuel.
Behind the prime mover is a 52 foot Intermodal shipping container to hold various solid cargo. Behind that is a small refrigerated trailer holding whatever. Behind that is an armored caravan that basically holds everything that anybody would need including restroom, running water, bunks, a refrigerator, dining table, and basically anything else necessary for a crew of 10 to live on. The last trailer is a compartmentalized liquids container carrying over 9000 gallons of both water and gasoline because apparently nobody in this place uses diesel, just gasoline.
Also, there ware railings everywhere, you know, because while crewing a road train through deadly territory might not exactly be safe and stuff, I'll be damned if I'm going to be skimping out on safety just for looks or something. I've got more than enough mass to spare so I'm keeping my crew safe.
I recruit about 39 people to crew my road trains.
I check them for loyalty, give them an interview, and then give them a bit of weapons training so that they would be able to handle weapons instead of simply spraying rounds everywhere. Thankfully, I'm able to pick up three former Royal Australian Defense Force soldiers to help my crew out with transitioning from single shot weapons to the semi-automatic M1 garand knockoffs I was providing them while I gave the RADF soldiers themselves Thompson submachineguns which they were grateful for.
It took a bit, but I think now we're finally ready to cast off. With fresh food, canned food, other goods, and everything else loaded up, I have my little fleet out on the tarmac ready and willing to get a move on.
Oh yeah.
As I make my way from the gates of hive base to the prime mover of the lead road train, there are really quite a lot of people out to see off the convoy. They're pretty respectful, good people them.
I climb up the retractable ramp into the cab of the road train and find myself standing on the bridge. The person sitting in the driver's seat stands up and salutes along with the other two of the bridge crew. I walk to the eldest person there, and return the salute.
"Admiral."
"Captain. You are relieved for now, I'll pull this girl out.."
"Thank you Captain. I'll go check on the rest of the crew." He turns to the other two. "Back to work boys." He nods at me and heads off toward the back.
I take my seat at the driver's seat, fiddle around with the driver's console and pick up the radio.
"Road Rage One to the fleet. Check in over."
"Road Rage Two checking in. Over."
"Road Rage Three checking in. We're good to go Admiral."
"Road Rage One, launching in three, two, one."
I throw a switch and immediately, I am rewarded with the roar of a huge turbocharged V16 engine pumping out over 3000 horsepower. It ignites a heat inside my loins as the feeling of sheer power speaks to something primal deep down inside. It feels good man. Super duper good. I don't bask in the feeling though, I have work to do.
"Engineer. Status."
"Engineering looks good sir. Engine running at 80% power. Everything seems to be alright."
"Navigation?"
"Everything seems to be working sir."
I tap the intercom for the rest of the train. "Alright boys, hold onto something. Road rage one, launch."
I ease the throttle forward and immediately I can feel the electric motors as electricity is fed to them. The road train lurches forward, pulling out of what I call Hive Base station to cheering and applause from all observing. The other ones follow me out and everything seems to be going according to plan.
"Alright boys, Ve formation. You know the drill."
Fortunately for me, they do know the drill. We had been practicing maneuvers in smaller cars pulling wagons. The convoy formed up into a V shape with Road Rage Two on the left flank and Road Rage Three on the right flank.
"Right crew. As you know, this is a humanitarian mission. Basic human decency is short in the wasteland, so we're gonna be giving it out by the bushel. Our mission is twofold, distributing supplies to the minor powers in the region and clearing out enemies of basic decency which basically means Warboys, Roadkill, and Buzzards.
We're now the First Australian Humanitarian Expedition. And we'll be heading over to someplace called Jeet's Stronghold and dropping off food and water there. From there, we'll be heading to Gutgash's stronghold.
Stay sharp. We're crossing out of the Hive Base defensive perimeter."
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The United States Postal Inspection Service was on the case in a neighborhood in what used to be Miami Florida where there had been a malicious attempt to mail a letter bomb to the White House. Data gleened from the FBI and the local government had pegged the perpetrators as the Green Army, a group of radical extreme left anarcho communists with an environmental agenda, well, environmental as in "taking revenge for earth" rather than actually focusing on conservation efforts or something, an agenda that they seemed to be attempting to take out on the government.
As per official post office policy, news of the attempted letter bombing had been spilled in a press conference after all of the evidence had been gathered. While the spokesman kept denying comments citing that it could compromise an investigation, Sergeant Mark Geofrey's platoon squad moved up to the door of the apartment that the Green Army was using as their headquarters.
Two other squads were also waiting, one in the building across the street and the other around the corner ready to jump in in case things got too messy.
"Kuribayashi." Mark said to his second.
Corporal Anderson Kuribayashi, a second generation Japanese American who had transferred in from another police department nodded. He moved forward and knocked on the door with the back of his hand while he remained behind the wall.
Immediately there was a sound of panicked scuffling inside.
"Police! Search Warrant!"
Immediately, the door was obliterated by automatic weapons fire. The squad fell back. Even though their standard issue Protect Suits were supposed to be highly resistant to all small arms under .50 caliber, they really didn't want to put that to the test. The squad fell back with their weapons up.
"Officer under fire. Need assistance." Geofrey spoke into the radio.
While the backup squad began moving up, the APC roared up from down the street, dillon minigun whirring as it spooled up.
"Fuck you coppers! Eat lead!" Screamed a voice from a upper floor. The "activist" began spraying bullets from an old M3 grease gun into the streets below. Many bullets hit the armored vehicle, but none did any damage. The officer in charge of the minigun aimed up but did not fire.
"Intel says there aren't any civilians inside the building. You are cleared to fire at will."
That was all the APC needed to saw the gunman in half with bullets.
It was going to be a while before the battle concluded. All of america learned a valuable lesson that day. Fuck with the mail and get fucked by the post office.