Bases, Bunkers, and Hidey-Holes

The Core Systems Alliance was not a great military power.

It was the only power, which is not quite the same thing. We did not have seasoned veterans, brilliant generals, or ambitious young officers. That had all been outsourced to private security companies over the past two centuries of peace.

What we did have was the inherited legacy of Earth's accumulated military spending, in the form of all the bases, bunkers, and hidey-holes that had survived the last Great War, and not been sold off for redevelopment.

From my regular duties, I knew that Yucca Mountain, our destination, was a Strategic Asset for the same reasons it had once been considered for storing radioactive waste– it's remote, geologically stable, and very dry. The tunnels there could keep a secret safe for millennia… but so could a bunker on the moon.

The only clue was age. The site was hundreds of years old. Our little robot generalissimo was at least one hundred and sixty. These secrets were old, maybe older than the Alliance itself.