[July 2059] Down Ole Mexico Way
“Well, yeah, of course there’s a catch.” replied Major “Geezer” Griesbeck, the company commander, running his hand over his short clipped balding pate.
Commerce City, Denver, Sioux Sector
GEI HQ, Main Briefing room
7 July 2059
0832hrs
Tell it to them straight
“I mean, if there wasn’t, why would they need us?” he adds prompting a round of cynical laughter. Sitting outside the global operations centre, Devil’s Company leadership has assembled for a long awaited mission briefing. Pouring over intel chips and scanning 24-hour news channels for the past half an hour, you’ve learned just about all you ever wanted to know about Aztlan. Most of what you’ve seen focuses on the growing insurgency in the Yucatan, but that’s not where you’re heading.
“OK, let’s recap,” Geezer says. “The Azzies have given the little towns and the counties that they occupied in old California the cold shoulder since the end of the war in ‘38. They’ve got a hot insurgency going on over in Yucatan and uncertainty on the border of Amazonia. Understandably, the Board of Governors in Tenochtitlan are focused entirely on the potential for the Imperials to back the California Republican Guard in a counter offensive. As a result, all of the Azzie forces in the area are concentrated on the border to prevent Cal Free from trying to take back San Diego. Everything south of the border is left to scrape and squabble among the banditos and corrupt Federales. That’s where we come in.” he says calling up a 3D topographic model of the Baja Peninsula.
“Down here, south of the Tijuana ‘plex, are a bunch of little towns, Rancho El Refugio, Punta Colonet, Ejido Eréndira. These are all small independent municipal conglomerates technically outside the jurisdiction of the corporate council and, more importantly, independent of Aztechnology. The price of that freedom? They all fall prey to bandits and there is no Aztlan Armed Forces cavalry to ride in and save the day. While we can’t save the day, we can make sure they have some basic skills to defend themselves against predatory gangs.”
The working folks Baja California are looking for a hand up, not a hand out. Best of all they’re willing to pay for it. GEI has been contracted to provide a bit of muscle and, more importantly, some training to local militias so they can fend for themselves. The company will be split up over a number of small operating posts advising, assisting and training the locals.