NationStates Jolt Archive


New Birchester [Haven]

Midlonia
07-01-2005, 18:52
“Fortress 1” Dauntless , Mickleover harbour.

‘Admiral on the bridge! Salute!’
The thirty men on the bridge dropped what they were doing and saluted.
Admiral Konotev looked around, and then nodded; the men sighed and went back to what they were doing.

‘Maiden voyage, and it’s one of peace, good way to run in her engines.’ The captain replied, nodding excitedly.
‘Mhm, how many civilians are coming with us?’ Asked Konotev.
‘Mainly engineers, a couple of railway contractors, not much, the plan is to scout the place, clear some land, establish a port, a military outpost, then we’ll get onto the matter of proper civvies buildings, for now it’ll be a military op, with some civvies stuff about it. We also have these artificial piers to set in, they’re in sections in the Cargo hold, the basic plan is to send forward a landing boat, they’ll find a suitable point on New Birchester, to establish a pier, we can then send in the freighters to set up the huts etc. It’s a long winded plan, and it’s all been sorted, so I’ll spare you the details, but we’ll have something up and running in a week or so.’
Konotev nodded.
‘Hail the ships’ he coughed a little. ‘We might as well get moving.’

The dark red flag with a white dove on fluttered in the breeze, the giant bulk of the fortress thundered out of the large harbour, it was surrounded by several frigates and many smaller craft, a few larger freighters sprinted off in front, the large heavy fortress kept its eye on the ships ahead.

Several days later, New Birchester.
The small tug boat floated lazily out of the fortress, it dragged slowly behind it a pier section. This first Tug was followed by one more, each towing a section.
The first tug beached the far end of the pier piece and cut the wires as it continued.
Men ran along the new section and watched as the second tug chugged into the massive bay, its smoke drifting lazily into the sky.
With a slam of magnets the pieces connected, “Pier one” was born, the men cheered.
A freighter whinged towards the newly made pier, the crane on it already beginning to winch a pack of some form over to the pier.
The pack of light track hit the pier with a clang, and the marines nearby immediately began to take pieces from it and lay it onto the pier, each section slotted together like a toy set, by the time the sun was setting a small diesel locomotive (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v160/Midlonia/colonialdiesel.png) had been set onto the pier and was soon shuttling packs of the track up and down the pier, the line slowly getting longer, the small line stretched up a good 100 yards into the forest, work had slowed due to the thick undergrowth.
An array of tents had appeared just off of the beach, these would house the men who worked on the island until the first, semi-permanent structures could be set up.