***
"What are we going to do about this?" Laura asked looking around the table. They were sitting down to breakfast, a much needed respite after last night's ordeal.
"We need to fight," James said.
"How?" Jackson asked. "Those guys came in here and did exactly what they wanted. Nearly took Greg out too."
Greg snorted in response, "I was fine but I see your point."
"We need to be more disciplined," Carol said. "Everyone kinda ran off once the alarm was sounded."
James nodded, "Carol's right, we can't leave our leader unprotected. You could've been killed if you weren't such a good fighter."
"I think we should all have a guard," Greg replied.
Everyone nodded in agreement and Jackson changed the subject. "What do we do about Dray?"
"Nothing for now," Greg said. "Those men we faced were way better trained than ours. We should probably assume most of his men have that level of training which means we need to close that gap as best we can." He looked around the table and wondered how they were going to take what he was going to say next.
"I did some thinking while we were on the roof." They had waited for the sunrise to disperse some of the infected before fighting through to their vehicles. Fortunately, they'd been able to get through without any casualties.
"Dray is building an empire. We need to do the same. We have to match him in resources if we're gonna defend ourselves." Greg chuckled self-consciously. "I know how that sounds. Originally I thought we'd find a spot and just have to worry about defending ourselves from the infected."
"That's not gonna work anymore," James said.
"It won't," Greg agreed, "if Dray attacked right now there isn't much we could do. They've got good training and vast resources...at least one helicopter and who knows what else."
"He must have been planning this for years," Laura said. "How can we catch up when he has such a head start?"
"We need to expand our forces," Greg said. "We'll look for survivors as we travel north. Once we're set up, we can take in smaller groups. When we've done as much of that as we can we can look to building alliances with other groups like ours. No one's safe if Dray intends to be some sort of emperor. We haven't survived everything we have just for someone else to come along and put us in chains."
"When do we start?" James asked.
"Now," Greg replied.