106

Stay Alive

Chapter 106 — The Reason

“What was that?” Claire asked, following Alan as he walked to clear his mind.

Claire looked up at the stars and said, “There are several refugee communities in this country, some larger than others. We are above them, but there is one that can match us — that’s FEDRA.”

“Now that we’re expanding our territory, our border soldiers ran into a FEDRA squad that was wiping out a community.” Alan lit a cigarette; he had taken to smoking floral cigarettes that supposedly wouldn’t make him addicted.

“Can we negotiate?” Claire understood the gravity of the situation.

Alan smiled, looked at Claire and said, “Those in power want to dominate the world, just like we do… I’m afraid if we go down that road we’d be at war with FEDRA, and if we ally with them we’d have the Fireflies as enemies. A decision of submission or attack lies in my hands and in those who lead the enemy.”

This was the reason Alan wouldn’t spend his time tolerating people who were clearly idiots, like Kai, who needed to be disciplined.

Claire understood the problem they were facing, so she said nothing. In the end, whatever decision they made would heavily influence whether they had a future or not.

…

Main operations base.

“FEDRA is seeking a peaceful meeting with our forces. What decision should we make regarding that?” Tommy posed the question to everyone present at the meeting.

There were high-ranking captains and leaders of border cities who had come to stay informed.

“We should send them a nuclear bomb.” Joel proposed an idea that silenced everyone.

“We will not become like them. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of lives.”

“Then will we let them take what we’ve built?”

“I never said that.”

Tommy shook his head; there was a bit of everything in this meeting, so he would wait for Alan to make a sensible decision amid the madness many were spouting.

“Silence!”

Boom!

Alan slammed the table so everyone would stop arguing and instead focus on the important matters. “We need to concentrate and treat this issue as seriously as possible. From what we can see, FEDRA made the same decisions we did, but to different degrees. We must also consider the Fireflies.”

Tommy felt compelled to explain: “We have information that the Fireflies is a newly established organization composed of three major survivor communities. As far as we know, one of the three branches was formed by the military, so they should have considerable power.”

“We have nuclear bombs.”

“That’s not the point. If we join with FEDRA we could recover the country in less than five years and begin expanding from there to other parts of the world.” Stuart emphasized how important it would be for them not to go to war with FEDRA.

But now a question arose: how do you take FEDRA without them trying dirty tricks?

“I will meet with them, explain my conditions, and if the answers are positive we unify. If they’re negative, I’ll consider it and we will eliminate FEDRA’s high command to take control.” In Alan’s mind, all of this was feasible.

If he made a mistake, he was sure he would fix it along the way with the largest possible number of deaths.

At least everyone believed Alan’s words, and they were confident they’d be ready in case air attacks occurred. They now had air-defense systems capable of intercepting hundreds of missiles, so fighting other organizations mattered little to them.