Early morning on February 2nd, Magnus spotted solar black spots for the first ti. It was over a week earlier than he rembered - he’d thought it would be February 13th.
By the night of February 3rd, fat snowflakes had begun falling again. Another on of the second teor shower.
Magnus was on edge. He scolded himself for letting his guard down these past few months. The team should’ve been prepping earlier.
That night, he ordered everyone to start packing the underground grain depot, load the trucks, line them up properly belowground. He even had the other two exits blasted open with explosives.
Co afternoon on the 4th, Magnus climbed a small hill for one last look at the solar spots. There were more of them now. Back in his last life, the Ice Regint had seen the sa thing - but they’d shrugged it off, just like most survivor groups were doing now. No one thought it ant anything.
Truth was, even now, Magnus wasn’t sure if the red light was coming - teor showers were definite, but those two dreams still gnawed at him.
If the red light never ca, fine - they’d just worked a few sleepless nights for nothing. Wiping out the Ridgebreak Battalion was only about the teors anyway, not the red light.
That evening, all Ice Regint mbers out in the field were recalled to the underground depot. Liana and her logistics team wrapped up their final inventory check.
She’d tallied supplies, weapons, vehicles, manpower - everything they had, down to the last can of fuel.
Just the logbooks alone filled 19 notebooks, each one detailed and categorized differently.
All the main captains and vice-captains of the Ice Regint were cramd tightly in Magnus’s RV, hands tensed, eyes grim. The atmosphere felt like the world was on the brink of collapse.
Liana passed around the notebooks.
Vehicle report:
After several battles these months - including two major ones in Hanford City and Ridgehaven City - the regint now had 1,476 vehicles.
Of those, 1,346 had been modified three tis.
The first mods were basic - steel plates over windows, nothing fancy. That was right at the start of the apocalypse.
Second phase ca in the Ironvale County air-raid shelter. Liana’s idea - mount large iron bins on car roofs, turning every vehicle into a mini-hauler.
Third ti was Magnus’s final request - steel spikes around each vehicle’s body. Roof, sides, front windshield - no exception.
Breaking it down: 258 were box trucks in almost-new condition.
Long-distance sleeper buses? 46 unmodified, 65 converted from coach buses.
Fuel tankers had grown from 79 to 91 units through trades. Of those, 69 were filled to the top.
Only issue - welding directly on a full tanker was a death wish. So, they’d empty one into another, mod it while dry, then refill.
Modified public buses: 602. Standard coach buses: 91. RVs: 45. Fire engines: 42. Refrigerated trucks: 51. Anti-riot SWAT vehicles: 5. Off-road and SUV types: 50.
Every wheel counted. Every gallon mattered. And now, they were as ready as they’d ever be. All 1,346 vehicles had been modified and loaded nonstop over the past few days. They were categorized and fully packed. Among them, 258 were triple-modified box trucks. Of these, 157 carried supplies from the underground granary - grains and vegetables. The other 101 held essential goods: cooking oil, 15,000 cases of canned food, and other necessities.
Items like toilet paper, quilts, clothes, shovels, torches - things less critical but still important - were mostly stored on the rooftop containers of other modified vehicles.
*****
Personnel count:
During the battle to seize the Ridgebreak Battalion, Ice Regint lost 32 people - 30 of them from Emily’s Second Unit. They hadn’t been allocated any tal Crystals from that fight.
Current team total stands at 8,460. Of them, 3,107 are non-Awakened. 4,821 mbers can drive, while 211 can handle infantry vehicles. Female mbers aged between 18 and 35 add up to 6,820.
Losses had already been filled in by logistics. Sophia’s First Unit has 2,500 mbers, Emily’s Second Unit 2,500, Lana’s Third Unit 2,000. Each unit includes around 300 mbers from the driver-chanic group, who double as fighters. Further breakdown wasn’t detailed.
*****
Crystal Inventory:
Liana logged 4,947 crystals in total - 2,439 Fire Crystals, 2,278 Water Crystals, 225 tal Crystals, and 30 Life Crystals.
Not included are the 2,000 crystals Magnus kept in his spatial storage - Fire, Water, and tal types not counted. There were still 159 Earth Crystals, 97 Life Crystals, and 5 Nature Crystals in storage.
Originally, there were 129 Life Crystals. After the ambush in the mountains involving Emily and Sophia, Magnus taught them how to use Life Crystals. He distributed 30 - for each of the three units, five apiece, and left the remaining 15 with Liana. The last two were used by Magnus himself.
*****
Weapons inventory:
Seized from the fall of Ridgebreak Battalion and two major skirmishes in Hanford City. Ice Regint currently holds:
11,288 assault rifles, 14,422 magazines;
13,378 semi-auto pistols, with 20,885 magazines;
grenades; 97 rocket launchers with 385 rockets;
mortars, 658 shells;
65,882 blades of various kinds;
infantry vehicles;
light tanks;
02C flathrowers with 255 spare fuel tanks;
military-grade landmines.
*****
Food inventory:
trucks carried over 3,200 tons of grain and vegetables.
Each truck loaded roughly 20 tons. A few days prior, Liana consulted experts to estimate weight limits. As long as speed was managed, large box trucks could handle the load without major issues, even if heavily overloaded.
Out of the 3,200 tons, about 700 were vegetables. Ideal math: with 8,500 mbers, each consuming one pound daily, that’s roughly 4 tons per day - so one month consus 120 tons. This stock could last six months.
For grain: 2,500 tons. If everyone eats about half a pound of rice a day, that’s about 2 tons daily - enough for 1,250 days, or roughly four years.
That four-year span also matches the expected shelf life.
Of course, that’s all idealized math - actual consumption might differ.
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