The flying cargo ship touched down just outside the southern gatehouse of the fortress. The ramp lowered and disgorged hundreds of men and women who immediately began unloading cargo onto the concrete slabs of the many cargo docks the gatehouse sported. Inside, they would find a small train that connected to the rest of the fortress and acted as the primary means of transport between each section. But, for them to move material throughout the fortress, they would need to secure the gatehouse, get the generator at its heart going, and ensure the internal infrastructure of the place was at least functional.

Each segment of the wall was a self-contained micro-fort with its own electrical, water, and sewage systems. Along with barracks, armory, vehicle portal, cafeteria, storage, and dozens of other things that each segment commander would need in order to properly do their jobs. It was designed that way so that if the sections had been placed just a few inches off one another, that it wouldn’t require hundreds of man hours to repair and get the entire interconnected system functional again. There was also a defensive purpose to it as well, John knew. If one section went down, the rest of the fort could still function and fight back. The internal defenses of any one section of the fort were not reliant on the computer software or command infrastructure of another.

The first people inside the wall were the rangers. The same platoon that had captured the three outer forts led the way. They cleared the gatehouse in little under an hour, the fresh five squads that John had brought with him in the cargo hauler aiding in their work and brought the platoon to its full strength.

As each floor was cleared, dozens of laborers, engineers, and craftsmen of various types swarmed over the area, checking to ensure everything was functional. Only when the top floor was cleared by both the rangers and the engineers did they activate the electrical grid in the gatehouse and begin loading material inside.

John spent that time outside, inspecting the area, helping his people organize themselves and offload both material and personnel as quickly as possible. A veritable tent city was created in under an hour as thousands of people offloaded from the flying cargo ship. John sent three more platoons, one marine, one standard army to the two flanking fort segments. They began the long process of securing the other sections of the wall.

The cargo ship was the size of a highschool. It was a brand new design, nearly four stories tall, larger then any fixed wing cargo plane that had ever been constructed before the system integration. It flew on two fixed wings that folded when it landed. Landing the thing was tricky, and relied on eight powerful thrusters that reminded John of the old Harrier jump jet fighter craft. The cargo ship had enough room to carry some two thousand personnel in standing seats, and several tons of cargo. The trip had been long, and John didn’t blame most of the people in his command the occasional break. In a few cases he ordered it.

Standing seats were the most uncomfortable things the military had ever invented. During his time as a field officer, they had only been used a handful of times. But every time they chaifed. He didn’t want to think about what had happened to the poor men and women who had withstood that for the entire ten hour flight.

He had one division equating to about fifteen thousand soldiers under his command, or at least, he would once everyone showed up. On site he had only a battalion strength force, some thousand actual warfighters. Though that also included a large chunk of the support staff. More than soldiers, the two thousand people who had joined him on the first ship had been civilian support staff. Scientists, engineers, builders, and the like who had been either conscripted, contracted, or who had volunteered for the position. They were technically not under his command as a military leader. They were under his authority as their governor.

That ceremony had been strange. The day after Greaves had shown him the wall being constructed, he had met with the president, the speaker of the house, the senate president, and the chief justice. They had signed a bill declaring some twenty square mile region around the connection pillar officially and annexed US territory, and then had turned around and sworn him in as the governor of that territory. There had been a little champaign, Mary was there and had toasted with him, and then he had been shuffled off back into the underground complex that housed the construction site.

Another ship landed shortly after the gatehouse was secured, and began unloading the heavy machinery and construction equipment that they would need to build the civilian infrastructure and support towns. There were a lot of funny looking trucks, and vehicles that John had never seen before. Each of them had some specialized purpose, and were heavily up-armored. The military vehicles came after the construction equipment. Mainly up armored humvees, multi-role bradley’s, and to his delight a trio of M1 Abrams main battle tanks. One thing Greaves had been correct about, the armor he had brought with him would require traditional fuel reserves. Those he had purchased for the outposts, and that even now sat in their much smaller vehicle ports where primarily electric vehicles, built for fast response and scouting missions.

As soon as the second cargo ship landed, John ordered the remaining six platoons of his first company out to man the outlying forts. They would be reinforced later, each with a company sized element. But for now he needed to ensure those installations were secure. Per his instructions every member of the expedition, and every vehicle they brought had a Friend or Foe tag so the auto defenses around the outer perimeter of the fortress would recognize them.

There had already been a mishap with the autoguns involving a pride of lions that ventured to close. So John had turned the outer perimeter from active, to alert status. That meant whenever they detected movement he and his entire command staff would receive an alert from the system. It had been less than six hours active, and John was already growing sick of the system. Once the platoons took up command of the forts however, the system would send the platoon commander in charge the notification. Sparring him from the nearly constant barrage of notifications.

As the sun went down, a third cargo ship landed. This one contained the majority of his combat forces. Some two thousand soldiers immediately took up residence in the tent city that the support staff had prepared. John had met with each of the battalion and their company commanders as they offloaded. Most had come through in good shape, if in somewhat bad spirits due to the long flight. Some of the men however, hadn’t fared so well.

“John” Greaves said. “John, can you hear me? Come on man, your command tower is ready.” John pulled himself out of his thoughts. He had been watching the wounded from the trip, there were a couple hundred of them, getting pulled into the medical tents at the end of every row. It wasn’t a standard military camp layout, it looked more like a refugee camp. But his civilian specialists who had designed it promised that it was more efficient for their current needs. “John!” Greaves practically shouted and John finally turned to him.

“Yes?”

“Don’t yes me, i’ve been standing here for about two minutes trying to get your attention.

“I apologize. I was making sure the wounded got proper treatment.” Greaves rolled his eyes.

“Stop fussing about some bruised knees and chafed thighs man. You’re men are fine, or they will be fine. Trust me, all of them have been trained up to a minimum of level 3. Most of them will heal up on their own, and what doesn’t the docs have some ointment for. Now, your command tower is ready. Do you want to go or not?” John followed.

As they walked through the tent city, then past the piled supplies John couldn’t help but stare up at the massive wall. It was imposing, it dwarfed everything around it, not that there was much to compare it too on the flat savannah. The natural beauty of Africa was at this time of year mainly a mix of green and browns, as the continent prepped for its rainy season. John knew that would be the first real threat he would have to face. The walls were so large they might cause flooding at their base. Helpfully the army corps of engineers had ideas of how they might fix that problem. But work on that wouldn’t start until the civilian infrastructure was at least partially complete. Until everyone had a hard roof over their heads, and beds to sleep in that weren’t made of scratchy government issues cotton, that would be his primary focus.

“John! Damn it man,” Greaves put a hand on his chest and stopped him dead in his tracks. “You almost walked inside!”

“I thought that was where we were going. Inside.”

“Well, yeah but not without you taking a second. This will be your first command in nearly two decades. Most commanders have some kind of ritual or something. I usually eat a burger outside just before I walk in. I have another at my desk the first time I sit down. Or at least a sandwich. It’s good luck. You got something like that? Like, a cigar, or something?” John smiled and shook his head. His friend, his boss technically but still his friend was just trying to look after him.

“I do have a tradition actually.” John gently removed his friend’s hand and walked past him, up the concrete stairs, and in the door. As he stepped through the portal he took off his boots, turned around, and beat them together. Removing the mud from them. “I always clean my shoes so I don’t drag mud in. If I didn’t show our new home that same respect, Mary would kill me.”