Fort Auxilem
Fort Auxilem is a small outpost of the Coalition Defense Forces on Eastern E5. Remote and little-discussed by Coalition officials, the fort safeguards the routes to important strategic resources and certain archaeological sites Coalition scientists believe might hold discoveries too important to leave to the Voxelians.
Purpose / Function
Fort Auxilem was established to support the defense of routes to the regions of the Glass-Block Fortress and the Eiquereus Craglands in adjacent cubes. To this end, the fort primarily serves as a base for autogyros, airships, and airborne detatchments. Because of its remoteness from the prying eyes of Bards-Recursant and location far from major settlements, Fort Auxilem also often serves as a proving grounds for technologies related to airborne operations, such as munitions, guidance systems, and even experimental airframes.
Alterations
The base's need for Biodiesel of various grades is great. For this reason, large underground tank farms, fuel biosynthesis reactors, and a distillation tower have been installed over time to give the base greater operational dependence. Minerals and chemical reagents are mostly acquired in-situ through contracts with Eiquereus Metals in the adjacent Eiquereus Craglands, though the base sometimes trades with Leather Jacket Nomads who have superior knowledge of local resources. A duty-free zone has been established just outside of the base which has been furnished with fuel pumps and bathroom facilities to support these mutually beneficial interactions with the region's transient civilian population.
Architecture
Fort Auxilem consists of several airstrips, hangars, barracks, and administrative buildings concealed behind two concentric rings of razorwire-capped fencing. Because the region in which the base sits is Dorsal-adjacent and close to the commissure - as in far from the edge and vertex mountains - the most a ground-based visitor might hope to see in the base is the air traffic control tower and RadNet antennae.
Defenses
In addition to numerous ACG-1 "Aquila" Combat Autogyros and at least one carrier airship at any given time, Fort Auxilem also hosts a large number of airborne troops, including elements of the 2nd CDF Armored Division with PBA-5 "Pioneer" Main Battle Auto-Armor. The perimeter is patrolled by guard dogs, riflemen, and up to four suits of BF-6 "Fortress" Mobile Stronghold Auto-Armor at a time.
The direct predecessor of the base commander was one of the officers responsible for the Sack of Thyonaxes who hand-picked his successor based on the fact that he shared a similarly ruthless record. This grim legacy is made well-known to the locals, dissuading would-be raiders or infiltrators; the recieved wisdom is that anyone caught in the base is never expected to come out in one piece, regardless of what CDF regulations have to say about the treatment of prisoners of war.
Tourism
Memebers of the Leather Jacket Nomads often stop in the environs of Fort Auxilem on their never-ending migration back and forth from their seasonal grounds, trading with Eiquereus Metals convoys and base representatives for fuel, alloys for crafting spare parts, and technical manuals. A common autumn route takes the Nomads from the region of the Bleak Pillars Arena through Seven Crows Fork, then past Craterhold Innovation Expo Park, and then past Fort Auxilem before finally arriving in Eastern D to wait out the summer in comfort. While this route is not the most direct one by any stretch of the imagination, it strings together a number of waypoints with important resources and permits intermingling between families taking routes that run across it.
Other than their contractors and the native population, even the region around Fort Auxilem is not open to unauthorized visitors. In essence, the fort represents the Coalition's claim of sovereignty over most of Eastern E5 face, excepting the edge and corner mountains. The base does allow the Leather Jacket Nomads to enter and traverse the commissure transit station to Eastern D, but time will tell if a toll or some other form of creeping control will be imposed by the stronger geopolitical power - after all, while the two peoples share a heritage of oppression at the hands of foreign powers, pragmatism may ultimately override such sentiments.
Coalition Insignia by BCGR_wurth
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