ling them savages. They are now British subjects, but they were just that when they came to join us. They became a willing and hardy labor force used to hard living and similarly hard work. Some had been slaves under their former tribal or feudal lords. Only one in about fifty was literate. Most had difficulty grasping the technical concepts that were familiar to any common schoolboy.

They were however, ideal to bolster the ranks of the Scavengers. This ignobly named guild gathered abandoned resources and turned them into useable building materials. They melted down iron and reforged it into girders and rivets. Rubble was ground into grit for everything from sandpaper to making bricks. The Scavengers had been invaluable to the rebuilding effort but they had always been woefully undermanned. Our new allies filled out the Scavenger’s ranks to overflowing. They also lead the Scavengers to new resources and finds that only a lifetime of living in this darkened landscape could have revealed. With the Nightmen citizens adding their expertise to the Scavengers repertoire, the first “Reforgers” were built. These giant scrap yards and factories rapidly turned all manner of raw and recovered materials into building materials while true manufacturing was being established.

It was a time of yelling matches that would have put Parliament to shame as civilian and military leadership went head to head over resources. The civilians demanded that our engineers and army retake the steel foundries in the north. They insisted that London must be built with British steel and iron. Mines were cleared and defended so that coal and iron production could begin again. And as one of those military heads, I’ll say this. The civilians were right.

We only had to break open the areas and the civilians took over even before they were secure. They say the foundation steel of the London Aeroplex was produced in the foundries while fighting was still going on outside. That was the nature of the civilians who built the London City of Light. They were tenacious as any soldier in the army, proud as the day was long and they would be damned if they would let anyone or anything take what they had worked so hard to rebuild.

As an example, during the second year of the Reconquest, a small army of some doomsday religion cult broke into the central London protected area. Apparently they had been tunneling, pumping out, and reinforcing tunnels for months to Execute this audacious attack. When they broke out into the formerly safe streets of London, they went on a rampage. The meager handful of soldiers stationed inside the city were caught off guard and unprepared. They fought and died well trying to defend the civilians in their homes, but it was chaos at every level.

There are times in my career when I have been glad to be lucky instead of smart. The entire situation was turned on its head when the religious madmen made for the Piers. These Piers would become the foundation of the Aeroplex, and when they were threatened, the battle changed into an uprising. Every man and woman in central London took up arms, rocks, wrenches and anything else they could lay hands on and went after the attackers with a vengeance. The only thing missing were the torches and pitchforks. By the time the engineers and the army took control, there was nothing to take control of. The civilians had not only retaken the Piers, but had chased their beaten adversaries back into their own tunnels. The Londoners had killed or driven off every member of the force and had followed them back to a compound five miles outside the city. By the time we got there it was aflame. At that moment, I knew that no one, short of God Almighty himself would ever take London again. I lost 110 men in the attack. And I would lose them again without blinking an eye for the victory that it brought. And it was not an Army victory, or even a victory for London. It was a victory for the British citizen. That victory is one that no amount of military planning and no amount of money or soldiers could ever buy.

When I was relieved after three years of hard fighting to rebuild London, there were 25,000 civilians living and working there. Entire families, right down to the family dog. The pug and the bulldog were the pets of choice in London in those days. Tenacious, proud and full of fight, they were the living embodiment of the spirit of London.

When I think of all the things I have been a part of throughout my life, both good and bad, I take the most pride in having been part of this. I remember when London was dragged from her muddy grave. I was there to build the City of Light.