Re: Ch. 20: Bydgoszcz
December 2, 2000
1400 hrs.
Bydgoszcz, Poland
35F, cloudy with a slight southerly breeze
The Krolowa reluctantly approaches the ruins of Bydgoszcz, giving LaRue time to take several readings on the Geiger counter. The results of the survey show that the radiation levels here, on the edge of the devastated city, are only slightly above the background levels normal to this particularly nuked area of the planet. Assuming that Bydgoszcz was itself the victim of a nuclear weapon (a safe assumption, considering the look of the place), it must have occurred 2-3 years ago, and all of the recent rain and snow will have at least suppressed any particularly radioactive particulate matter, making the city less dangerous even than Warsaw, in which you spent a considerable amount of time. All things considered, you determine that Bydgoszcz is safe enough to explore. Griet finds a suitable anchorage near the city and drops anchor. Although currently upwind of the city, the tug is now slightly downriver from it, making fishing a little less attractive as a food-gathering option. As those that remain on board busy look for tasks to keep themselves busy, Tadeuz takes the landing party ashore in the Princess, returning to the tug after dropping the scout-scavengers off.
The small team (consisting of Tucker, Craig, Mariusz, and Minh) heads into the ruined city. Very little still stands over one story in height, and most buildings, regardless of previous size, are now shapeless heaps of snow-covered rubble. The team steadily works its way inshore. Hitting what used to be a main road, the group finds a rusting procession of Soviet military vehicles. It looks like a motor rifle regiment was making its way through the city when it was nuked. Most of the trucks in the long convoy have burned down to shriveled skeletons, but the few armored vehicles here- prime movers, mostly- are relatively intact. Two-three years of sitting, badly scorched, under the elements have resulted in quite a lot of rust, though, so whatever armor you could salvage here would likely be of suspect structural integrity (and heavy cutting tools will be needed). The procession of the dead stretches as far down the road as the landing party can see. Perhaps there is a wider selection of AFVs further inland. The road is so littered with debris that it now only allows cautious foot (and maybe bicycle) traffic.
Mariusz, Craig, Minh, and Tucker immediately set to scrounging. There's not much to be found. There's very little here that hasn't been blasted, crushed, or burned. Still, in the bowels of a collapsed apartment building, Mariusz does find a single tin of anchovies. There's possibly more to be found deeper inside the rubble, but in order to search it more thoroughly, Mariusz will have to squeeze into some tiny passages, and there's no telling how stable the remains of the building are.
The others have less luck. There's the tantalizing possibility that much more canned food is buried throughout the city, destroyed as it was earlier in the war, when such supplies weren't yet as uncommon. But, considering the small size of the landing party and the sad state of the surroundings, many more hours of searching the ruins- a task not without a degree of danger- would be required to harvest it.
While searching a somewhat less demolished building on the other side of the street, Tucker spies what looks like the rippling air of a heat mirage atop what looks to be an upright pipe of some sort, about a block further inland.
Next Moves?
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This message was last edited by the GM at 16:38, Sat 07 Sept 2013.