Olixus, Casca Province, Vectus- February 3, 2057
There was a buzz in the air of Olixus, a electricity that permeated the conversations of the dust caked town late into the night as it had been for days. This infectious excitement had first come into town with the shrill squeal of old brakes in front of the local bar, a stout concrete structure with a faded neon sign hanging out over the front entrance, if one could read Vecturian Script they would notice that the sign simply said "Bar". However, in spite of its humble advertising the Bar served as a local gathering place for the working men of Olixus. The Arkadian Provisional Government had built a actual public gathering area almost 40 years earlier but with the ever increasing insurrection that ideal of civil uplift had been all but eradicated. The large half-circle hall now stood empty at the edge of the town, the wide double doors lodged open by a drift of dust.
On that particular night the Bar was packed to the brim with the hungry and work-worn residents of Olixus, most of them coming back in from a day in the fields. A man in a blue jumpsuit had pushed open the door, his face caked with the grime of the Cascan Desert. The bartender welcomed him by name, Gorji, a farmers son who spent his days drilling wells looking for the pockets of the Aquifer that had eluded consumption. A good well could win a man three weeks of solid meals for his family or a ticket west for himself. However Gorji had not found water, oh no, the young Vecturian had found something many thought to be gone from the world.
Oil.
It had been almost 8 years since a single drop of oil was leeched from the dirt, and even the isolated town of Olixus could tell that the world was starting to feel the strain, sure there were fuel cells and reactors, and the creaking helix shaped wind turbines that dotted the edge of the town, but nothing compared to the potency and usefulness of real oil. So when Gorji and half the working men of Olixus journeyed out to his claim and found black crude bubbling through the cracked earth, they knew change was coming to Olixus. Little did they know the turmoil that was headed their way.
Olixus, Casca Province, Vectus- February 6th, 2057
Commander Dessinus was a veteran of a dozen and a half campaigns, had killed more men than he could count and hadn't worn anything but combat boots since the 2040's, and even he hated Casca. At least other deserts had the decency to be hot, this desert was as bitter cold as any tundra but lacked any sort of way to escape the wind. Nothing lived in this frigid corner of the world and Dessinus understood exactly why, the ground bit into your skin, the wind felt like a blast of salt, water was as rare as gold. Yet, despite its widely accepted status as an unmitigated piss-hole, this desert still contained "strategically important population centers". Dessinus knew that meant Olixus, because Olixus was the only place with a population over one-hundred for two-hundred kilometers. Now he was hunched over in the back of a troop truck, the gritty dust already working its way through the edges and seams of the vehicle. According to the standard issue watch around his wrist it was four in the morning.
He looked out the rear window of the truck, which was a thin slit on the three inch thick rear door. Behind his truck there were two others and a specially outfitted vehicle laden with communications gear. Dessinus let the clattering of the half-maintained highway lull him into an unfocused state for the remainder of the trip until the convoy came to a stop at the edge of Olixus. Their mission in the town was to secure a base of operations and set up a communications relay, unusual considering this town was well behind the frontlines of the insurrection and hadn't seen any real rebel activity for months, but Dessinus followed his orders. Command had picked out the old Colonial Uplift Administration Hall for the base, it was gutted but thanks to its thick walls and rugged design it would work well. Dessinus ordered his men to unload the supplies and begin setting up camp while he and his Corporal surveyed the area. He found what he expected to, a dusty backwater forgotten by the rest of the world, why General Rala had sent him here was beyond him, but Dessinus followed his orders.
By Sun up the base was in working order, communications had been established and a VTOL landing pad had been designated on what used to be a soccer pitch. Dessinus was proud of the quality of his unit and was eager to report his success to command, when he had they informed him that a Transport would be dropping off an advisory team within the hour. Fine by him, as long as they didn't slow the unit down, but when an all black Transport emblazoned with the emblem of the Potentate Retainers set down in his FOB things changed. The Retainers were the secret fist of the Potentate, and if they were here it meant that whatever had been found out here in this hellhole was worth more than this whole town.
