By Marina and myself:
DNS Condoleeza Rice, Collinfield, ADN Intervention Zone
Gilead
DAY 44
Again the honor guards had been called, the hanger prepared, and everything in general made ready for the welcome of the new ranking commander of the Taloran intervention force, as well as the Habsburg commander and other national commanders for the meeting to decide when and how to attack Gilead itself. Admiral MacCallister stood again with her staff in dress uniform, the same voices from before mumbling about the protocol that annoyed so many.
This time Halsina was joined by her superior in rank, Frayuia Risim the Duchess of Medina. They were the first to arrive, and the Duchess actually seemed rather friendly. So, too, did Admiral Sir George Cradock, Earl of Summertown, Viscount Queensville, the British admiral who had commanded the Grand Alliance's unified fleet to victory over Plymouth at the Second Battle of Queensville, reopening the supply lines to Scathford and driving back the Plymouthite forces under their equally-brilliant Admiral Henry Martyn in the process. Cradock was a thin man of graying, balding dark hair and mustache, imperious looking if possessing of the particular warmth and courtesy of an English gentleman, and his staff were just as stiff-necked as MacCallister's as the two commanders exchanged pleasantries.
More imperious was the Hispanic commander Field Marshal Don Carlos Ferdinand Sandoval y Dios de Santa Paz, the Duke of New Bolivia; he rather coldly and formally greeted Admiral MacCallister and her staff, while his own staff tried and failed to hide what was clearly greater misery at the stiff-necked protocol than MacCallister's staff had.
The French commander, Vice Admiral Duc d'Multhouse, was very generous in his greeting to MacCallister and the others, while Catalinian Marine Corps General Mulhouse Tibbets was more concerned with eyeing the Alliance Marines assembled to greet him, as if inspecting them; he nevertheless offered his greetings.
Following him were the last two commanders. Vice Admiral Philippe du Guise, Comte de Nancy, was even more imperious in posture than Don Carlos, though he was more respectful in action toward MacCallister when introducing himself.
General Fyodor Tarasov of the Tsar's Army, a thin and athletic commoner who had risen through the ranks on pure skill, presented himself gracefully and warmly, thus ending the entire parade of commanders and allowing MacCallister and her people to escort them to STELCOM and the conference table placed in the second floor above it's great holotank; here was the nerve center from which an admiral could command an entire theater of naval operations with great efficiency.
"Gentlemen and Ladies, to get down to business....." MacCallister took her place near the head of the table, as she was technically the host of the conference. "The situation on Gilead has deterioriated. General Covington's new junta has begun aiding the primitivst armies attacking Kalunda and has attacked any faction that refuses support for it or which is outright interventionist. We received confirmation from intelligence sources this morning that the Gilean military launched a series of air strikes on Kalundan troops yesterday and orbital scans from our stealth craft indicate that the Kalundans have been forced out of their trenches and into urban combat. It is my personal opinion, as well as President Dale's opinion I'm told, that the planned landings on Gilead be delayed no longer, that all of us must cease expanding operations to other worlds in the Confederacy and concentrate on taking Gilead itself with all available forces."
"It is time we act!" Lieutenant General Risim, the Duchess of Medina, responded to MacCallister before anyone else could. "I have come here with the utmost decision, under the absolute understanding of my government that the first goal is to secure the relief of the city of Kalunda. To this end, bearing my particular instructions, I give support to the idea that we bring our combined fleets into solar space near Gilead at the earliest possible moment; within seventy-two hours at the latest and preferably sixty hours from now on the terran measure, with the goal of landing troops on the planet as soon as the minesweeping assets arrive another fourty-eight hours after that. To do this we must, however, at this must immediately appoint a united fleet commander and second, and a commander and second for both the relief expedition and the main strike force to land on the planet. I will acknowledge that we, the Taloran nation, expect command of the relief force. Will we place all our other forces, however, under the command of other nations, to be selected here; and we have no interest in any other sort of demands. Personally I intend to support for the other command positions whomever seems most able to maintain the harmony of the coalition."
"I concur with Her Grace," Cradock said in an imposing tembre. "So far we have been dawdling, snatching up bases here and there, and more for purposes of negotiation than for military purpose I would say. We must take Gilead, and we must take it as soon as possible."
"The problem that remains, Your Grace, Admiral, is that we do have established commanders for the fleet. And, I daresay, the number of nations and their prominence makes it difficult to establish such matters on precedence alone. We all have our spheres of influence, but to control the occupation of the remaining worlds and for operations on Gilead itself we must establish some regular system for joint operations," de Guise continued: "I will make it plain that all groups must receive appropriate representation in command."
Tarasov spoke next. "Slavia concurs. Furthermore, we also would like a senior command figure in the relief of Kalunda, as there are many of the Tsar's subjects trapped in that city, as well as a Consul of Slavia, and it is a matter of honor to Slavia that we have as prominent a role as possible in it's relief."
"I'll remind you, General, that we can claim the same," MacCallister remarked. "However, for the sake of making these decisions as quickly and harmoniously as possible, I am willing to give the Talorans command of the relief of Kalunda and to have a Slavian officer in the vice commander position. If none are opposed, that brings us to deciding the command of the fleet and of the main strike upon Cranstonville, and to deciding what form of command all joint operations should have. I would say that on top of the six commander and vice-commander positions we have already considered, an overall commander and vice-commander, with chiefs of staff, be made for the entire operation and for future joint efforts, and that these commanders should not just represent each power here but also each service, say, an admiral in charge and a general in second, or vice versa."
"I have no objection," Don Carlos Sandoval answered this time. "But the question of the other positions is one that must be solved rather more urgently. They are the more critical, and the vice commanders at best are simply backups."
It was the French representative commander who offered the curious proposal next, which seemed able to break the impasse: "We are, ultimately, acting in pursuit of a careful political intervention, against a rather primitive enemy. For the purpose of harmony, in not having the question of who shall be vice commander of one expedition or another, and who the commander--let us adopt the old Roman formulation when both Consuls were operating together with the Army. The two appointees to each of the remaining three positions shall rotate between the commander and vice-commander positions on a daily basis."
"Much of the Gilean officer corps was trained under British and Catalinian instruction, I'll remind you," stated Cradock. "We mustn't take them too lightly."
"Certainly not," de Guise concurred. "But the whole of the operation may be safely conducted in this fashion; the co-commanders could share a staff, after all, making the regular transitions rather seamless, and both would be constantly kept up to date on the operations of the other, by sharing a headquarters. It appears to be the only workable idea."
"Any objections, then, to Admiral Mulhouse's suggestion?" asked MacCallister.
"No," the Duchess of Medina leaned forward slightly, a finger resting to her chin, ears up. "Let us place as overall co-commanders the ranking Slavian and Hispanic officers, alternating daily as per the proposal. I will nominate yourself, Admiral, and Admiral Cradock, to alternate command of the naval forces. For the main ground forces, let us alternate Habsburg and French officers. The Catalinian ranking army officer may, let us further say, have full command responsibility for the multinational forces which shall occupy all the remaining worlds of the Confederacy save Gilead itself, and under him shall be placed a permanent Hispanic second to compensate for the fact that the Slavians shall provide my permanent second in command."
There were clear signs of discontent among some, mostly junior officers. "If I may interject something further," Cradock said, hearing some of the remarks, "I would also say that we should see about allowing for elements of each intervening nation to be permitted the honor, jointly, of relieving the city of Kalunda. We all have citizens trapped there, after all, and this way none of our nations will be slighted by not being given a place when our troops enter the free sections of Kalunda."
"Can each nation provide a brigade? I do not want a force smaller than a brigade operating independently in my order of battle," the Duchess of Medina answered, adding: "I am given to understand that the Slavians, Habsburgs, and Alliance have already provided for a commitment of two brigades each; I have allowed this also. If each remaining nation of the great powers intervening can provide a single brigade, we shall have a force of more than sufficient capacity to undertake the mission. All of my planning to date had been based around only ten brigades, not twelve."
There were some nods. "It will take some doing for us," General Tibbets said. "I have only two of our four Marine brigades under my command, and my government refuses to dispatch Army forces as they are by law meant only for defense of our systems from Chinese threat. If you absolutely require a brigade, Ma'am, I can send it, but it likely means that I won't be able to give any substantial support to the Cranstonville operation, barely a battalion or two in all likelihood."
The Duchess was lost in thought for a moment. Then, however, her head raised and with it her body until she was fully erect, smiling rather faintly. "General, could you form a brigade of landed naval volunteers? The crews of the ships in your country's force are extensive... And it is quite certain that extensive use of armoured trains in the primitive zone has taken place. At least in the history of my people these were actually typically crewed by naval personnel, as the weapons systems are not terribly different from that with which they are familiar."
Tibbets was deep in thought. "That likely wouldn't work, ma'am, as our services tend to be more specialized. The most you can ask of shipboard complements is fighting off boarders or maybe providing a little muscle at supply depots. As it is, the only naval personnel who consistantly serve on the ground in combat conditions are the medical corpsmen we attach to our Marine units. But I suppose I could twist my captains' arms and get the shipboard Marine contingents, that might give us at least an extra regiment. And if you give me a few days I can get my superiors to sign off on shipping in an extra Marine regiment, together they'd be a brigade, a bit understrength, but at least able to deal with the local militias."
"That will be most acceptable, General. We'll work with what we have available." The Duchess had maintained the point only on account of the maintainence of the various terms of the agreement, including the reciprocity of having forces from all of the nations involved in the relief. Beyond that, well, her forces she accounted sufficient for the work as it stood. A slight smile was offered, and to a student of Taloran body language, her ears showed her eagerness. "When shall we direct the fleet to the Gilead System? My understand is that we will not have the minesweeping assets for a landing for another five days, but certainly airstrikes are possible before this to soften up the enemy and deny them use the of their own airforce, and of course we must clear the enemy fleet in advance of the landings at any rate. How long will it take for the combined fleets to go forward together to contest the system, then? I say we must do this in no later than seventy-two hours, does anyone hold an objection? Or think we can accomplish it sooner?"
"I may be accused of boldness, but I think we can trim that to forty-eight hours, and most of that is simply to insure a coordinated command-and-control," MacCallister remarked. "I have the facilities here on the Rice to command every allied navy in Gilead if need be, and if Admiral Cradock wants to remain here to oversee the operation with our control facilities he's more than welcome."
"While my flagship has all the necessary functions I require, I do not object to transferring my flag to this ship," Cradock said. "It'll certainly ease command and control without having to constantly call between here and the Thunderer, and it'll ease the plan for Admiral MacCallister and I to share a command staff."
"Yes, and if you don't mind, General, I'd like Admiral itl Sapai to be our Chief of Staff, if Admiral Cradock doesn't object." MacCallister looked to Cradock, who nodded his head to indicate assent.
"I'll agree to it. She'll do fine in that role."
Halsina's ears rose at the compliment, and she obediently dipped her head. "It will be quite the honour, Your Grace, Admiral."
"I'll have the necessary staterooms made available immediately,"
"I should think," Frayuia answered with a small smile, and then continued.. "Ahh, Admiral MacCallister, Admiral Cradock, our forces are strong in dreadnoughts. I will refer this to your knowledge of naval affairs: Do you think that with the minesweeping assets we'll have in four days, rather than five, will be sufficient to thin a path so that the dreadnoughts can bull through the rest of the mines and allow us to land troops in a local area, say, above the primitive zone? We'd gain a certain advantage in being able to deploy our troops during which, according to my information, what would then be the planetary night would be taking place."
"I'd hesitate to risk any capitol assets for twelve hours of time," the Duc de Guise rejoined from further down the table. "But I'll leave the final decision there to be made by the joint commanders based on a technical evaluation of the minefield."
Cradock was the first to speak, MacCallister ceding to him as both a matter of seniority and that of experience. "We would take losses, possibly, though the point-defense weaponry on our vessels could if necessary act as anti-mine weapons, and certainly the same for the weapons on Alliance warships, which I am most familiar with. These are, in fact, my primary worry, as the Royal Navy was able to take intact much of the Gilean Navy at the joint base at Nueva Cartagena, and my squadrons have further chased to ground most of their light elements. Only the squadrons guarding New Friesland remain a concern, and the New Frieslanders have made noises through.... unofficial channels that they would be willing to declare for the intervention if we should guarantee their autonomy. Our governments have not yet decided on such things, but at the very least it confirms they will likely respond late, if at all, to any request from Covington for fleet protection."
"Depending on the quality of their mines, our fighters could also use smart cluster missiles to help open a path." MacCallister put her hands on the table. "The key is to ensure the rest of the minefield doesn't rotate or thin itself out in an attempt to cover up the hole we make. If they're among the more sophisticated systems, in which the mines are more like stationary missiles or missile launchers, they could even be under remote control, and the Gilean system defense operators could, say, wait for us to get critical assets into the "hole" and then suddenly snap it shut by adjusting the mines."
"Vaguely similar weapons exist in land combat," the Duchess acknowledged. "I'll provide my precise landing zone for you in secured transmission in the next six hours, Admirals, and leave the timing, of course, to your discretion."
"As the saying goes, Your Grace, 'Fortune favors the bold'," quoted Cradock with an anticipatory grin.
"Then there is only one question remaining," the Duc de Guise observed: "When shall the system of alternating commanders commence, and who shall go first?"
The later question was certainly the trickiest, and an air of uncertainty resulted from its voicing. Until, that is, the Slavian commander, Tarasov, proved himself to have an eccentricity equal to that of many of the Slavian commanders and diplomats in general. He produced a deck of cards from his pocket and proceeded to shuffle it, allowing a trace of an amused grin to touch his grim face, as he presented the shuffled cards to the momentarily confused representative of his country's rivals, Don Carlos. "Cut the deck, Your Grace?"
The Duc de Guise got the Russian's intent before his ally did; he smiled, chuckled softly, and queried: "Whist, General Tarasov?"
"Whist it is."
And so it was that the order of command for the advance on Gilead was decided by a rubber of whist.
It was sometime later that the conference ended and MacCallister returned to her office, her orders to Line Captain Palma for the preparation of state rooms given first. Here she prepared herself a drink and went to work on the paperwork that her job entailed.
"Ahhhh, Admiral... May I come in?" The accent could only be Taloran, and the voice was certainly Halsina's, with that sort of hesitancy which instead of being uncertainty came off as a sort of noble affection, which the Duchess of Medina was much more heavily indulgent of, but the Marchioness of Sapai could occasionally not avoid, either.
Looking up, MacCallister replied by saying, "Come in, Admiral. The door is unlocked."
Halsina stepped inside, helmet tucked under her left arm as typical aboard a human ship, and smiling in that vague Taloran way, no less sincere if one learned their moves, as she stood before the Admiral. "Thank you, Admiral, that you've offered me a chance to handle the staff procedures of a full fleet operation. I am surprised you had such an especial confidence in me as to recommend me, I must confess."
"Your record, as much of it as I've had the time and ability to read at least, recommended you for the role, as did the size of the Taloran naval contribution. We are, along with the British, furnshing the most advanced and capable ships in the intervention fleet, so it makes sense that you have a place in the command." MacCallister stood and smiled. "And, I have to admit, it'll make dinner a great deal easier to arrange. Is there anything I can get you to drink? Replicators don't make great food, but at least the drink is passable, and I have a selection of Taloran beverages installed in the system. Bought them via the tachyon grid from a replicator company that's opened business in your colonial territories here."
"Dhpou? To much to do for me to think of drinking outright at the moment," Halsina answered, asking for the spiced beverage preferred in leisure by Talorans, though drunk hot rather than cold. "I cannot stay for long, of course, as I must arrange the provisions of the command of the squadron while I am absent here dealing with my assigned duties, but I wanted to impress upon you the fact that I'm quite thankful for the opportunity. You've proved yourself not just a reliable ally in these operations, but a genuine friend."
MacCallister smiled at that. "I like hearing that. I was afraid after our first meeting that we'd both gotten off on the wrong foot." She entered the sequence on the replicator unit placed near the wall. A swirl of energy resulted in the creation of a ceramic cup filled with a liquid that was steaming. She picked up the cup by it's handle, the insulation of the replicated material preventing her from being burned. As she went to hand it to Halsina, gesturing at the same time toward a chair for Halsina to sit in, she asked, "Hot, right?"
"Yes. I'm told it's sort of like a variant of something called ginger ale you humans drink, but you drink that cold. We prefer things warm..." She sat, and took the cup gladly, blowing over it lightly before taking the smallest sip off the top. "Which I suppose is natural enough, in some sense. I know enough about human biology to understand that you evolved in much warmer areas than we; and yet we are the ones with much less body fat. The more energy for us, the better. It was ironically the Princess Jhayka who wrote a book on human cuisine which I read before my deployment here, for sake of understanding what I was getting myself into at all the countless formal functions I expect, who honestly described our own food as universally bland and served ridiculously hot, by human standards." A moment of silence. "Your people, I hope, are not angered by our having sent Her Grace the Duchess of Medina here to assume command? I privately feared you might construe it as an insult."
"Some might. I, for one, don't mind having a ground pounder officer in charge of ground pounders. It's hard enough commanding Marines sometimes, and at least in the Alliance we are two seperate services." MacCallister gave a slight shrug. "I'm sure there are those who are irritated, though. This is going to make some history, and the people involved in it are going to get some press, good press they hope. And all of our Army and Marine commanders looking forward to leading the relief of Kalunda are instead stuck under the Duchess' command." MacCallister sighed. "And it's probably a good thing that most of the Muslims in the Alliance service are either from the more liberal states or probably don't know which Medina her title refers to..."
"That's actually the point that I was most worried about. There have always been some among us who thought that the sack of Medina was honestly a sad point which should have been avoided; you must understand that we have a religion which regards it as our duty to protect the other monotheistic faiths. That said, rebellions are rebellions, and her own exemplary religious posture removes what grounds for criticism as may be. She clearly thought the Muslims... Needed a lesson in respect. I freely admit that I find your anger at Her Serene Majesty's holding vassalage over the human nations, to be misplaced and strange.. But I'd fully understand an expression of it regarding the sack of Medina."
"Anger?" MacCallister had a look upon her face, one mostly of bewilderment. She supposed that others hadn't taken the news so well, but... "I, I honestly don't feel angry, not at Humanity's position regarding the Talorans. If you ask me, that it took us a century to find a universe where not only were there non-Human species, but where they were in authority over Humanity, is more of a surprise. Though, maybe we let it get to our heads a bit, you know... every universe there is us, but there seems to be few duplicates, if any, of the other races. The Minbari, the Klingons, the Cardassians, and of course your people, each only exists in one universe we've encountered so far. And yet we're in all of them. Each and every one. I guess it gave us a complex, and then here you come, from a universe where Humanity isn't top dog at all, isn't even in consideration..."
Halsina frowned, and held her hand up for a moment, a curious gesture... "Tell me, these Minbari? They're the ones with the ridge crest on the back of the head?"
"The headbones? Yeah, that's them."
"I remember seeing in a picture-book when I was a young girl, inscriptions on a smashed and shattered world which we had found, in the direction of human space, a decade or so before we contacted your people there. I had not thought of it for many years, but when I first saw a Minbari, as you call them, I was struck by the similarity betwixt the two." She leaned back, drinking heavily of the dphou, now, a hand running through her sensuous length of royal blue hair. "Another connection betwixt our universes, if a much more faint one--as if that one may be anything save the memories of a child recalled badly--is the curious fact, which I reviewed with several officers of the dreadnought squadrons when we were studying the stellar cartography of the Alliance regions, that in comparison with the human development patterns of some of your histories, Taloran space is very far coreward. In particular, it is tens of parsecs further coreward than, ah, what you'd call Clan space. Perhaps there is some trace there of what has become of our distant cousins; and perhaps there is a hint in all of this that it is not that all the other species you know are not the same throughout the various universes, but rather that in most... We have not had the luck of the draw to survive. And what's curious about that in turn is that it seems Talorans are the furthest, genetically, of the humanoid-form species, from humans. All idle speculation for the likes of us, but we have reassured ourselves with the knowledge that it seems a vague Purpose is at work in the ordering of the humanoid peoples."
"I have heard of other theories," MacCallister stated, sipping on some mass market tea (not the kind of "refined" tea that Cradock and his officers preferred), "that beyond the idea of Multiverse is that of 'Megaverse', and that certain universes are clumped together, for lack of a better term, and travel between them is easier than travel to another. Somewhat like galaxies in a single universe, which are vast in of themselves, but which are also part of clusters of other galaxies. The theory goes that these clusters have similarities to one another, explaining why so many of our universes' histories seem to be similar. And then you get into the theory that each decision point in the universe leads to the spawning of another universe, or timeline, where the decision is different." She smiled wanely. "Or so my husband tells me. That kind of theorizing is his hobby."
"Then we would be on the outer edge of a cluster which is capable of achieving contact, I suppose, because the humanoid races are most diffuse in our universe, and not so genetically interrelated as in most of the others." A moment, and she added, almost a bit coy about it, curious in a polite way: "Forgive me, but you're married--I did not know this--what does your husband do?"
"Roger is a lawyer," MacCallister answered with amusement. "He used to be JAG - military law, which is how we met - but he went into private practice. He is, so to speak, the breadwinner of our family. He earns about twice what I do. My eldest is in law school to follow in her father's footsteps, while the boys are like me and joined the service. They're both Lieutenant Commanders now."
"The fourth estate," Halsina remarked softly. "Strange to hear of a daughter going into that, I must confess. Ah.. What you call lawyers have broader functions in our society, mostly in regard to the implementation of Imperial edicts through challenges in the seignorial legal system, and the reading of proclaimations in the fiefdoms. Broadly clumped together with the academics of the universities, their representatives form a specific voting block in the lower house of parliament. It is a respectable way to go through life. I'm unmarried myself, and I'll confess that it's a bit of a scandal, for the Marchland of Sapai must therefore rely on my Grand Sheriff for governance; this is not, however, irregular amongst the inner Marchlands like Sapai which no longer have a frontier border due to our expansion. And, for the moment," there was a trace of wryness, "I am not exactly on a posting apt to find a nobleman suitable for courtship."
MacCallister laughed softly. "The only reason I met Roger was that I was called to testify in a court-martial against a Seaman under my command, and Roger was the defense attorney. It was love at first sight.... after I wormed my way out of his trap on cross-examination, that is." There was a mischievous gleam in her eye. "You know, it occurs to me that while our legal system can be a bit of a tangle, what with local courts, state and province-level courts, national courts, and the Alliance Courts, your legal system is even worse, with all of those autonomous and semi-autonomous parts to your Empire."
"Oh, I believe it. Even in the tightly integrated Imperial territories, the local nobility usually has the right to administer justice, even if they don't have their own legal code like most of the independent fiefdoms. Sapai is, as a Marchland, sufficiently autonomous that the executive branch--which you're essentially speaking to--has sundry involvements in judicial matters. Generally speaking, court trials are straightforward, following a shared pattern, but it's the appeals process where things get very interesting."
"I take it you have a High Court that any of your people can appeal to?"
"Not a court, properly. The various independent nobles--those who are rated as holding seats in the Convocate--have fully independent judiciaries. Appeal as such is not possible beyond them. The Court of Cassation is the appeals court for crimes of lese majestie and grand treason, along with certain other crimes against Imperial structures themselves; those are, however, crimes only tried in the Imperial courts to begin with. However, all can appeal for the Imperial mercy. Essentially a process of hearings which can result in a recommendation of a pardon to Her Serene Majesty, to be issued to the appellant."
"Roger would probably find it interesting to study your law. He likes hard cases." MacCallister shook her head, snickering. "In our cases, the Alliance Court has limited power to hear cases, and they have to involve either a multinational case, a case of treason - and that is an entirely different story, because our constituent nations also keep treason laws on the books! - or a citizen claiming that his constitutional rights have been violated at the national level, in which case the Alliance Courts are his final hope of appeal. And that is the most controversial and most contested part of law in the Alliance today, as various sides argue the Alliance Court can or cannot rule on the Constitutions of constituent nations or can or cannot overrule laws on the books that do not specify violate the Alliance Constitution. The precedent is still being established for much of it, since the Alliance Court is so much different in form and function than historic international courts, like the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunals at The Hague and Geneva."
"We have never had international tribunals as such. A Sovereign rules unrestrained before God in her own right... But we have long traditions which govern these customs, and the traditions of differing fiefs often clash. At this point, it becomes an issue of the importance of the various obligations." She smiled, then, and finished the dhpou. "I would extend to him an invitation to the capitol, sometime, to read the law libraries at Valeria, if you think he would appreciate it."
"He might well enjoy it, and he's been looking to do some academic work some time in his career. Thank you very much." MacCallister took another drink. "General Tarasov approached me after the meeting and asked what my government's position was on dealing with Covington and the other senior officers of the Gilean junta. Apparently he wants to have them all summarily shot upon capture."
Halsina came near to spluttering at that. "Ah, Admiral! Such savagery from that man... I can't help but call the sentiment low-born. They are just defending their country, and fulfilling their duty in doing so to the best of their ability. It is a sad situation, and one I do not think will be made better by executions. I assumed the new government would proscribe them and exile them, but that is a very low thing to do when we have no evidence they've done worse than fight for their honour."
"I told him something similar. His reply was that 'they have sided with the barbarians and are aiding them against civilized folk, so we must treat them as we would barbarians', or something." MacCallister slipped back in her chair. "I'm at a bit of a loss of what to do with them, honestly. On the one hand, they're trying to defend their country from a foreign attack, but on the other they are helping the primitivists against Kalunda, and these are primitivists known for rape and murder whenever they capture a city. And then there's the question about whether they even have an actual country, when you consider just how the Gilean Confederacy is splintered." She smirked. "I bet some could say that about the Alliance, too."
"All questions which I think, Admiral, recommend us to err on the side of caution, in allowing them to make their flight to some place of exile." Halsina did not seem like she'd budge on that opinion, and it at least presented a contrast to the occasionally bloodthirsty reputation of the Talorans. She glanced at her chrono, then, pulled out of her pocket.. "If you'd forgive me, Admiral, I must however draw this meeting short to return to my flagship for the ordering of the command in my absence, and to get my personal effects for several weeks aboard this ship as now seems likely."
"I'll call up to Launch Control and make sure they give you top priority," MacCallister promised. "Maybe now that you're on board, we can keep that dinner date I promised?"
"Most assuredly, Admiral. It will be my pleasure to attend."
55 Days in Kalunda.
Moderator: LadyTevar
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
By Marina:
DAY 45,
S. of EAST PORT.
“You know Danielle, and I know the Princess Jhayka well. We are the comrades of the besieged.” So General—formerly Colonel--Arshon introduced herself to Fayza with a heartfelt feeling. She had not thought it once of her curious and eccentric commander who had hired her for this madcap reconaissance and the lunatic war which had followed it, and consumed the past two months of her life, but now she did. Somewhere, far off, in besieged Kalunda, stood an incredible figure who animated them all. Unfortunately, they could not succor her, for they were dug in against the strength of a full modern armoured corps, supported by fifty thousand militia from the city, and nearly two hundred thousand barbarian troops under the command of the Caliphal mercenary, General Neguib, now that the old age and youth levies of the tribal lashkars of the al-Farani Emirate had arrived, though scarcely two-thirds of those had modern firearms, the rest armed with jezails and spears, with a single MBT company and two medium/light tank battalions plus artillery scarcely compensating for that.
Fayza had accompanied Eric Berglund's thirty-four thousand troops, including allies, to the area of East Port, only to be faced to retire under the threat of the Cartagenean Corps. There they had joined Arshon's force of 1,100 Kalundans, 3,080 Amazons, 250 Slavians, 1,200 volunteers from the city of East Port who had elected to fight the new government, and the crews of the General Faeria and five other armoured trains. The concentration, particularly in the heavily shielded General Faeria, had enough anti-air weapons to fight off several desultory airstrikes by the government, and so far the situation was not bad.
They were dug in around the town of Yhusai, which had a pre-war population of 17,700, situated fourty kilometres south of East Port, straddling the small Ratim river. On their arrival, the townsmen had elected in a fractuous vote, influenced by the guns of the trains, to deploy their militia, around four thousand in all, and elected Arshon the commanding General. In all there were somewhat more than fourty-five thousand troops still in the pro-intervention to the south of the city. More filtered in from time to time, and Arshon thought that in another two or three days they might have a force of around fifty thousand again; more were unlikely.
With so much going on it seemed odd from Fayza's perspective that she'd been called to speak with General Arshon. But the Devenshirite mercenary seemed curious about Fayza. Justifiably so, perhaps. The conversation which they now held revealed a pertinent fact, which Arshon had known all along, but which Fayza only now realized, somewhat to her horror: Her own captivity was the start of all the hostilities on Gilead.
“It doesn't surprise me that you escaped on your own. Ironically, someone worth so much to Danielle, someone who could make her convince the Princess to bring all of this down on her head... Someone of that stature virtually demands the ability to escape on her own.” A wry, grim chuckle. “Of course, unlike Danielle, you're still an officer.. Which is part of why I brought you here. Duty.”
“General?” Fayza broke free from her reverie. She had heard of Danielle's resignation... And I hope they'll reinstate her now, the circumstances considered! But the last comment brought a great deal of surprise to her. “What duty do you have for me, other than in Berglund's army?”
“Liason between this force and the international troops. The international forces, Fayza, are nearly upon us. For whatever reason the Cartagenean corps hasn't been trying to heavily jam us, and there's a relay station just to the south of the river which allows us to punch through the regular jamming around the planet. We've received word that the international forces are finally coming. They'll jump into the Gilead system in the next thirty hours.”
“They have finally come?” Fayza was delirious with happiness. More than two months in Hell were coming to an end..
The cool words of the mercenary, though, brought her back to the grim military situation at hand. “They won't be able to land for at least two days after that. Possibly three. The minefields in orbit have to be cleared. But they're sending a strong force to the area of East Port; we're going to see a landing of twelve brigades here to attempt the relief of Kalunda. They've asked you, as the only ranking Alliance naval officer in the area—the irregular Slavian cossacks don't have the experience--to take charge of the coordination between our forces and the landing operations, including the pre-landing airstrikes, which will hopefully regain us control of the air tomorrow.”
“I'll do my best, General.” She straightened, forcing herself to overcome the inner pain, the constant temptations to darkness, which the memories of the past two months left indelibly imprinted into her, right up to and perhaps especially Aurora's death. She wasn't sure of herself, anymore. In her periods of torture, she wonded if she'd lost It, the motivation, the capability, the spirit to be a naval officer. She wasn't sure if the task was one she could achieve again, or not. She could only try, and find her.
“Very good. You're dismissed, Commander.”
Fayza got up, then paused. “General... Arshon. May I ask you something?”
“Certainly.”
“Where did the Taloran agent go? I wanted to speak to her about Danielle's condition.. And about the two of them, together. The Princess and Danielle, I mean...”
Arshon offered a ruthless smile. “She snuck off at the onset of the Cartagenean ultimatum, with her ship. To Sedavanticist territory. We will be hearing of her again soon enough, I imagine.”
“Thank. Ah.. I have another question.”
“Yes?”
“Why did you stay?”
Arshon frowned, a bleak and bitter look. “Everyone questions the loyalty of mercenaries, do they not? I imagine that, even to some extent, the Princess did as well, in sending me off to fight from a more secure location, hoping to get the most use out of me. But let me tell you, Commander, that I am not without honour and sympathy. I simply don't have a home. And it was all of my own device, no less.”
“But you're from Devenshire...”
“Exactly.”
The two pairs of eyes met for a long moment as Fayza realized precisely what that meant. Arshon, and probably a fair number of the mercenary company which Jhayka had recruited and which had fought vigorously alongside Arshon here, and in Kalunda, were in fact wanted criminals in Devenshire. Wanted criminals of the old regime and all its horrors, before Minerva restored the honour of the country.
She shrugged, and smiled tiredly, the demons of the past beaten back, briefly, by thoughts of how marvelously this all came together, and the moment of shining in the human soul that it demonstrated; that someone thought evil might yet atone for their sins.... “It takes all kinds, General. I'll stick with you no matter what.”
“Thank you, Fayza. But we had both better get back to work. Forward, to Kalunda.”
DAY 45,
S. of EAST PORT.
“You know Danielle, and I know the Princess Jhayka well. We are the comrades of the besieged.” So General—formerly Colonel--Arshon introduced herself to Fayza with a heartfelt feeling. She had not thought it once of her curious and eccentric commander who had hired her for this madcap reconaissance and the lunatic war which had followed it, and consumed the past two months of her life, but now she did. Somewhere, far off, in besieged Kalunda, stood an incredible figure who animated them all. Unfortunately, they could not succor her, for they were dug in against the strength of a full modern armoured corps, supported by fifty thousand militia from the city, and nearly two hundred thousand barbarian troops under the command of the Caliphal mercenary, General Neguib, now that the old age and youth levies of the tribal lashkars of the al-Farani Emirate had arrived, though scarcely two-thirds of those had modern firearms, the rest armed with jezails and spears, with a single MBT company and two medium/light tank battalions plus artillery scarcely compensating for that.
Fayza had accompanied Eric Berglund's thirty-four thousand troops, including allies, to the area of East Port, only to be faced to retire under the threat of the Cartagenean Corps. There they had joined Arshon's force of 1,100 Kalundans, 3,080 Amazons, 250 Slavians, 1,200 volunteers from the city of East Port who had elected to fight the new government, and the crews of the General Faeria and five other armoured trains. The concentration, particularly in the heavily shielded General Faeria, had enough anti-air weapons to fight off several desultory airstrikes by the government, and so far the situation was not bad.
They were dug in around the town of Yhusai, which had a pre-war population of 17,700, situated fourty kilometres south of East Port, straddling the small Ratim river. On their arrival, the townsmen had elected in a fractuous vote, influenced by the guns of the trains, to deploy their militia, around four thousand in all, and elected Arshon the commanding General. In all there were somewhat more than fourty-five thousand troops still in the pro-intervention to the south of the city. More filtered in from time to time, and Arshon thought that in another two or three days they might have a force of around fifty thousand again; more were unlikely.
With so much going on it seemed odd from Fayza's perspective that she'd been called to speak with General Arshon. But the Devenshirite mercenary seemed curious about Fayza. Justifiably so, perhaps. The conversation which they now held revealed a pertinent fact, which Arshon had known all along, but which Fayza only now realized, somewhat to her horror: Her own captivity was the start of all the hostilities on Gilead.
“It doesn't surprise me that you escaped on your own. Ironically, someone worth so much to Danielle, someone who could make her convince the Princess to bring all of this down on her head... Someone of that stature virtually demands the ability to escape on her own.” A wry, grim chuckle. “Of course, unlike Danielle, you're still an officer.. Which is part of why I brought you here. Duty.”
“General?” Fayza broke free from her reverie. She had heard of Danielle's resignation... And I hope they'll reinstate her now, the circumstances considered! But the last comment brought a great deal of surprise to her. “What duty do you have for me, other than in Berglund's army?”
“Liason between this force and the international troops. The international forces, Fayza, are nearly upon us. For whatever reason the Cartagenean corps hasn't been trying to heavily jam us, and there's a relay station just to the south of the river which allows us to punch through the regular jamming around the planet. We've received word that the international forces are finally coming. They'll jump into the Gilead system in the next thirty hours.”
“They have finally come?” Fayza was delirious with happiness. More than two months in Hell were coming to an end..
The cool words of the mercenary, though, brought her back to the grim military situation at hand. “They won't be able to land for at least two days after that. Possibly three. The minefields in orbit have to be cleared. But they're sending a strong force to the area of East Port; we're going to see a landing of twelve brigades here to attempt the relief of Kalunda. They've asked you, as the only ranking Alliance naval officer in the area—the irregular Slavian cossacks don't have the experience--to take charge of the coordination between our forces and the landing operations, including the pre-landing airstrikes, which will hopefully regain us control of the air tomorrow.”
“I'll do my best, General.” She straightened, forcing herself to overcome the inner pain, the constant temptations to darkness, which the memories of the past two months left indelibly imprinted into her, right up to and perhaps especially Aurora's death. She wasn't sure of herself, anymore. In her periods of torture, she wonded if she'd lost It, the motivation, the capability, the spirit to be a naval officer. She wasn't sure if the task was one she could achieve again, or not. She could only try, and find her.
“Very good. You're dismissed, Commander.”
Fayza got up, then paused. “General... Arshon. May I ask you something?”
“Certainly.”
“Where did the Taloran agent go? I wanted to speak to her about Danielle's condition.. And about the two of them, together. The Princess and Danielle, I mean...”
Arshon offered a ruthless smile. “She snuck off at the onset of the Cartagenean ultimatum, with her ship. To Sedavanticist territory. We will be hearing of her again soon enough, I imagine.”
“Thank. Ah.. I have another question.”
“Yes?”
“Why did you stay?”
Arshon frowned, a bleak and bitter look. “Everyone questions the loyalty of mercenaries, do they not? I imagine that, even to some extent, the Princess did as well, in sending me off to fight from a more secure location, hoping to get the most use out of me. But let me tell you, Commander, that I am not without honour and sympathy. I simply don't have a home. And it was all of my own device, no less.”
“But you're from Devenshire...”
“Exactly.”
The two pairs of eyes met for a long moment as Fayza realized precisely what that meant. Arshon, and probably a fair number of the mercenary company which Jhayka had recruited and which had fought vigorously alongside Arshon here, and in Kalunda, were in fact wanted criminals in Devenshire. Wanted criminals of the old regime and all its horrors, before Minerva restored the honour of the country.
She shrugged, and smiled tiredly, the demons of the past beaten back, briefly, by thoughts of how marvelously this all came together, and the moment of shining in the human soul that it demonstrated; that someone thought evil might yet atone for their sins.... “It takes all kinds, General. I'll stick with you no matter what.”
“Thank you, Fayza. But we had both better get back to work. Forward, to Kalunda.”
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Written by Marina:
DAY 45,
al-Farani Emirate,
border with Lo Stato Pontificio.
With the scream of metal upon metal, so did Najhasi Fridalyn enter the territory of the al-Farani Emirate. The improvised armoured train upon which she rode flew the banner of the Papal States, as the Sedavanticist territories styled themselves, and it was the most primitive of the lot: A collection of iron plates bolted everywhere, many of them medieval and hammered, wrought iron, and supported by seemingly random and a bit desperate sandbagging. It had several heavy machine-guns and a few primitive mortars, along with a nasty little low-tech edition: Pumps for projecting Greek Fire. Primitive war was not without its own nasty surprises, after all.
Mostly, though, riflemen along the flatcars provided most of the power, and that was sufficient enough. Though the Sedavanticists had originally at the start of the war only had some 8,000 modern rifles, they had obtained another 1,700 over the course of it, desperate to bolster their defences, and Najhasi had used her J'u'crea to smuggle in another 500; they also had 1,200 machineguns, 1,000 RPG launchers, 3,000 sub-machineguns, and 200 automatic pistols. The number of the simple, blackpowder, 60mm drop-fire mortars that had been produced—hand crafted--was around 400, and fourteen old 105mm howitzers had been scrounged. Local production had sufficed for 800 simple imitation bolt-action rifles. The rest of the whole army was armed with simple, fused grenades, swords and pikes, crossbows and longbows, and at best, the simple blackpowder shotguns, more or less heavy muskets, which had begun to proliferate the primitive zone after Sara's first suppression of the slavers when the old anti-technology laws had first been openly flaunted.
This was the equipment for a force of more than eighty-two thousand men—and one armoured train—which now crossed the undefended frontier, past the Sedavanticist March, into Moorish lands. It had the air of a crusade. The banners and pennons of the cavalry following, and then the infantry, were gaudy and bright, and crosses and priests were everywhere. Najhasi and her small band of sixteen Talorans in armour with the most advanced weaponry provided a solid reinforcement to the weapons posted on the armoured train. She had initiated the advance; in all, it consisted of twenty thousand infantry with modern weapons (counting the full crews for crew-served weapons), fifteen thousand heavy knightly cavalry—the full muster of the States, whereas most of the infantry was retained defensively—eighteen thousand men armed with blackpowder muskets/single-shot shotguns, plus sword and target (most did not have a mounting for a bayonet), two thousand identical except with crossbows, twenty-two thousand armed with pikes, bill, and halberd, and five thousand longbow-men.
Najhasi was a farmer's daughter, and she regreted what she had encouraged the Papal commander, Duke Gregory di Montesucci, to engage in. It had the full support of the Sedavanticist religious authorities, of course, but farmers loved the land; and the Papal troops had always sought to conquer the fertile territory of al-Farani for their own sake, to enhance their own plots and improve their status in life in a society built around the farm, and the farming village, thoroughly distributivist in character.
What they were doing, of course, was burning the Moorish villages. Najhasi put it into the context of the acts of the famed Duchess of Medina; she was, now, pursuing but a similar course. The villages were burned and demolished, the fields were burned, stored crops were requisitioned or destroyed, and the cattle herded off or slaughtered if this was impossible. And so in a broad swathe around the rail line, which naturally made the territory the most prosperous, everything was being laid to waste as the army advanced, by her own instigation.
The widows would starve; the children, also, would go sick and hungry. The angry and spiteful women in their full burkhas harangued the invading troops, who filled with confidence and religious fervour at the ease advance, did not harass them but rather observed their horrors at the destruction of their livelihoods with a sort of haughty pride, and carried on with their destructive and holy advance.
Just beyond the border was the first city on the rail line, a garrison city which was more of a fortress surrounding a caravan-souk than a proper city as such. It had a permanent population of ten thousand, though held three times as many on account of the traders, and the refugees which were now crowding into it. The city was named Umm Rashrash, and the pickets outside the walls of the benighted place were driving back by a brief fire from the armoured train, which proceeded to cover the deployment of the lead elements of the Duke di Montesucci's army.
“Mratefha, how do you think the Lord of Justice looks up the destruction of so many fine crops, and the ravaging of these herds? We aren't nobles by any measure, and I don't want to impunge on their duties, but I must wonder at the purpose the Lord Farzbardor has in letting us make war in this fashion, if we really can...” Najhasi, for the cool operator that she was, now was very much subdued. She had set the whole operation in play when the Sedavanticists were already chaffing at the gate to invade the al-Farani domains, and arranging for them to gain fourteen howitzers and sealed the deal, along with a few sly not-quite-promises about the postwar situation.
“Ma'am, OpLeader...” The other Taloran gave a moment's hesitation, and switching to the Ohulj uplander dialect they happened to share, then continued: “Najhasi, you're a friend to, and our discipline is more informal than that of the military, so let me speak to you like one. Neither of us has seen a war before. And I don't want to see one again, even when it's so primitive like this. But for all we're supposed to care for good animals and crops like this—that's simply because they're tools for making a better society for people. Well, these Moors do not have any good in their society; we must open the way for it. Just like the Duchess of Medina did on Earth. Look how much good she did, when it was said, at the time, that the razing of a Holy City was near to sacrilige. Yet she won three and a half million human souls for the faith outright, and ended the vile practices of the Moor which had so long terrorized the human race.”
Najhasi's ears flexed in a sort of wearied assent. Their fire was checked; the arrows falling from the city walls kept mostly short, and couldn't harm anyone aboard the train, anyway. Even the sandbagged flatcars had multiple pavises stacked together suspended over them on bars and wires as a defence against such an attack from the air. War was also proving surprisingly boring, even by the standards of people trained to patiently lay down covered in cold mud for days on end.
“And so you see this campaign as a natural extension of that other one, Mratefha?”
“More or less.”
“I suppose that is reason sufficient to trust in it. I had fancied that we should meet a proper enemy army, and have a proper battle, as we did on our escape from the Delta, a straight-up fight between two forces on open ground; but when it became so quickly clear that this was not the case, I made this decision, I convinced the Duke of Montesucci, and I will hold by it. But there's no easy feeling in the pit of my soul to order such destruction of the livelihoods of thousands.
“Strange. I never respected the Princess of the Lesser Intuit before this. Now, I have learned to respect her.. And I think, a bit more. For all that she's acted so depraved and sinned sometimes, it takes a certain sort of soul to order this thing and carry it through with certitude of one's own right.”
“And fall in love at the same time,” Mratefha observed with a light chuckle. “Though, perhaps that is the stress of the situation. No noble is immortal, even Her Serene Majesty, and I half wonder if that is reason alone for her behaviour which sometimes so contrasts that chivalrous spirit.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps.” Najhasi fell silent after that. The howitzers were being brought into position, now, to demolish the walls of Umm Rashrash—the ugly surprise that the Emir would soon find out about, fourteen guns which might doom a Kingdom—and she didn't feel very good about it at all. They'd soon be summoned down there to aide the gunnery plots for the barrage. And a city packed to the gullets with noncombatants will be taken under bombardment. Just like Kalunda. All for your point of honour, Jhayka: Do you realize how much Lashila would hate you for it? That mental rumination provided a small, soft smile to Najhasi, who appreciated well the heavy irony of it: But that, of course, means you have recovered far better than any of us could have ever dreamed. You are a chivalrous lady through and through; and I suppose in the service of the All-Highest Empress the least I can do is smash a few towns for the sake of your life, now that it offers hope of good, alien mistress or not.
In some way, the siege of Umm Rashrash was Najhasi's own way of atoning, directly, as she had committed to do at Kalunda in Jhayka's presence by her apology, in the Taloran way of thinking, for her bungling the operation against the communitarians, and in doing so, guaranteeing the necessity of Jhayka's execution of her first love, that long-cold Lashila. Really, above all things, that scandal had set in motion the chain of events which brought her here today: So she would end her part of it with the necessary show of gut, in hope that all might at last be brought to satisfactory conclusion.
Yet for that, Jhayka herself would have to also be bold and stubborn; and even as the guns salvoed against Umm Rashrash for the first time, Kalunda stood embattled, under constant air attack, and in imminent danger of the general collapse of its defences. The Princess fought from the front now, and it seemed scarcely possible that she could avoid paying for it.
DAY 45,
al-Farani Emirate,
border with Lo Stato Pontificio.
With the scream of metal upon metal, so did Najhasi Fridalyn enter the territory of the al-Farani Emirate. The improvised armoured train upon which she rode flew the banner of the Papal States, as the Sedavanticist territories styled themselves, and it was the most primitive of the lot: A collection of iron plates bolted everywhere, many of them medieval and hammered, wrought iron, and supported by seemingly random and a bit desperate sandbagging. It had several heavy machine-guns and a few primitive mortars, along with a nasty little low-tech edition: Pumps for projecting Greek Fire. Primitive war was not without its own nasty surprises, after all.
Mostly, though, riflemen along the flatcars provided most of the power, and that was sufficient enough. Though the Sedavanticists had originally at the start of the war only had some 8,000 modern rifles, they had obtained another 1,700 over the course of it, desperate to bolster their defences, and Najhasi had used her J'u'crea to smuggle in another 500; they also had 1,200 machineguns, 1,000 RPG launchers, 3,000 sub-machineguns, and 200 automatic pistols. The number of the simple, blackpowder, 60mm drop-fire mortars that had been produced—hand crafted--was around 400, and fourteen old 105mm howitzers had been scrounged. Local production had sufficed for 800 simple imitation bolt-action rifles. The rest of the whole army was armed with simple, fused grenades, swords and pikes, crossbows and longbows, and at best, the simple blackpowder shotguns, more or less heavy muskets, which had begun to proliferate the primitive zone after Sara's first suppression of the slavers when the old anti-technology laws had first been openly flaunted.
This was the equipment for a force of more than eighty-two thousand men—and one armoured train—which now crossed the undefended frontier, past the Sedavanticist March, into Moorish lands. It had the air of a crusade. The banners and pennons of the cavalry following, and then the infantry, were gaudy and bright, and crosses and priests were everywhere. Najhasi and her small band of sixteen Talorans in armour with the most advanced weaponry provided a solid reinforcement to the weapons posted on the armoured train. She had initiated the advance; in all, it consisted of twenty thousand infantry with modern weapons (counting the full crews for crew-served weapons), fifteen thousand heavy knightly cavalry—the full muster of the States, whereas most of the infantry was retained defensively—eighteen thousand men armed with blackpowder muskets/single-shot shotguns, plus sword and target (most did not have a mounting for a bayonet), two thousand identical except with crossbows, twenty-two thousand armed with pikes, bill, and halberd, and five thousand longbow-men.
Najhasi was a farmer's daughter, and she regreted what she had encouraged the Papal commander, Duke Gregory di Montesucci, to engage in. It had the full support of the Sedavanticist religious authorities, of course, but farmers loved the land; and the Papal troops had always sought to conquer the fertile territory of al-Farani for their own sake, to enhance their own plots and improve their status in life in a society built around the farm, and the farming village, thoroughly distributivist in character.
What they were doing, of course, was burning the Moorish villages. Najhasi put it into the context of the acts of the famed Duchess of Medina; she was, now, pursuing but a similar course. The villages were burned and demolished, the fields were burned, stored crops were requisitioned or destroyed, and the cattle herded off or slaughtered if this was impossible. And so in a broad swathe around the rail line, which naturally made the territory the most prosperous, everything was being laid to waste as the army advanced, by her own instigation.
The widows would starve; the children, also, would go sick and hungry. The angry and spiteful women in their full burkhas harangued the invading troops, who filled with confidence and religious fervour at the ease advance, did not harass them but rather observed their horrors at the destruction of their livelihoods with a sort of haughty pride, and carried on with their destructive and holy advance.
Just beyond the border was the first city on the rail line, a garrison city which was more of a fortress surrounding a caravan-souk than a proper city as such. It had a permanent population of ten thousand, though held three times as many on account of the traders, and the refugees which were now crowding into it. The city was named Umm Rashrash, and the pickets outside the walls of the benighted place were driving back by a brief fire from the armoured train, which proceeded to cover the deployment of the lead elements of the Duke di Montesucci's army.
“Mratefha, how do you think the Lord of Justice looks up the destruction of so many fine crops, and the ravaging of these herds? We aren't nobles by any measure, and I don't want to impunge on their duties, but I must wonder at the purpose the Lord Farzbardor has in letting us make war in this fashion, if we really can...” Najhasi, for the cool operator that she was, now was very much subdued. She had set the whole operation in play when the Sedavanticists were already chaffing at the gate to invade the al-Farani domains, and arranging for them to gain fourteen howitzers and sealed the deal, along with a few sly not-quite-promises about the postwar situation.
“Ma'am, OpLeader...” The other Taloran gave a moment's hesitation, and switching to the Ohulj uplander dialect they happened to share, then continued: “Najhasi, you're a friend to, and our discipline is more informal than that of the military, so let me speak to you like one. Neither of us has seen a war before. And I don't want to see one again, even when it's so primitive like this. But for all we're supposed to care for good animals and crops like this—that's simply because they're tools for making a better society for people. Well, these Moors do not have any good in their society; we must open the way for it. Just like the Duchess of Medina did on Earth. Look how much good she did, when it was said, at the time, that the razing of a Holy City was near to sacrilige. Yet she won three and a half million human souls for the faith outright, and ended the vile practices of the Moor which had so long terrorized the human race.”
Najhasi's ears flexed in a sort of wearied assent. Their fire was checked; the arrows falling from the city walls kept mostly short, and couldn't harm anyone aboard the train, anyway. Even the sandbagged flatcars had multiple pavises stacked together suspended over them on bars and wires as a defence against such an attack from the air. War was also proving surprisingly boring, even by the standards of people trained to patiently lay down covered in cold mud for days on end.
“And so you see this campaign as a natural extension of that other one, Mratefha?”
“More or less.”
“I suppose that is reason sufficient to trust in it. I had fancied that we should meet a proper enemy army, and have a proper battle, as we did on our escape from the Delta, a straight-up fight between two forces on open ground; but when it became so quickly clear that this was not the case, I made this decision, I convinced the Duke of Montesucci, and I will hold by it. But there's no easy feeling in the pit of my soul to order such destruction of the livelihoods of thousands.
“Strange. I never respected the Princess of the Lesser Intuit before this. Now, I have learned to respect her.. And I think, a bit more. For all that she's acted so depraved and sinned sometimes, it takes a certain sort of soul to order this thing and carry it through with certitude of one's own right.”
“And fall in love at the same time,” Mratefha observed with a light chuckle. “Though, perhaps that is the stress of the situation. No noble is immortal, even Her Serene Majesty, and I half wonder if that is reason alone for her behaviour which sometimes so contrasts that chivalrous spirit.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps.” Najhasi fell silent after that. The howitzers were being brought into position, now, to demolish the walls of Umm Rashrash—the ugly surprise that the Emir would soon find out about, fourteen guns which might doom a Kingdom—and she didn't feel very good about it at all. They'd soon be summoned down there to aide the gunnery plots for the barrage. And a city packed to the gullets with noncombatants will be taken under bombardment. Just like Kalunda. All for your point of honour, Jhayka: Do you realize how much Lashila would hate you for it? That mental rumination provided a small, soft smile to Najhasi, who appreciated well the heavy irony of it: But that, of course, means you have recovered far better than any of us could have ever dreamed. You are a chivalrous lady through and through; and I suppose in the service of the All-Highest Empress the least I can do is smash a few towns for the sake of your life, now that it offers hope of good, alien mistress or not.
In some way, the siege of Umm Rashrash was Najhasi's own way of atoning, directly, as she had committed to do at Kalunda in Jhayka's presence by her apology, in the Taloran way of thinking, for her bungling the operation against the communitarians, and in doing so, guaranteeing the necessity of Jhayka's execution of her first love, that long-cold Lashila. Really, above all things, that scandal had set in motion the chain of events which brought her here today: So she would end her part of it with the necessary show of gut, in hope that all might at last be brought to satisfactory conclusion.
Yet for that, Jhayka herself would have to also be bold and stubborn; and even as the guns salvoed against Umm Rashrash for the first time, Kalunda stood embattled, under constant air attack, and in imminent danger of the general collapse of its defences. The Princess fought from the front now, and it seemed scarcely possible that she could avoid paying for it.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Following by Marina:
DAY 45,
Kalunda,
On the Siege Lines.
In the pre-dawn darkness strange shadows were cast by the orange light of the continuous fires burning from inside the city of Kalunda. The airstrikes which had been rolling over the place for the past two days continued throughout the night with intermittent losses, such that a fair number of Gilean flyers were now guests (and very sumptuously maintained ones, at that) of the allied headquarters. Ahead, beyond the old trench-lines and in the shadow of the ruins of the railroad station, the shadows were cast by a very different force.
During the past two months of heavy, modern fighting which Jhayka's escape from Ar had triggered, a certain number of veterans, all residents of Ar who had fought against Jhayka during her escape, and since then had been subjected to continuous improvements in discipline and culling of the undisciplined through the violence of the combat against Kalunda, had ultimately been reduced to the size of a division, and split off to form this elite unit, the “Ar” Division named after the city they all came from.
Recognizing the desperation of their position, Tarl Ikmen had elected to spare no expense in guaranteeing the breakthrough and encirclement of the industrial district. He had ordered the Ar division to provide the force requested by Erqui, and in doing so commit himself to one last great bloodletting to smash through the Kalundan lines and give them the one decisive victory they had so-far lacked in the siege, which would leave the whole south bank of the river vulnerable to an imminent collapse from a big push. Therefore he had ordered the Ar Division forward.
Thirteen thousand five hundred men of Ar were now being prepared to commit to a battle which had already started. For the past twenty minutes the Stirlin troops along the front with the advanced battalions and their Kalundan flank guards had been worming their way forward with the support of heavy mortar fire. Slowly the force of this attack was mounting as more and more troops were brought in. Erqui's goal was to push the enemy as far as possible, so that the sudden and sharp intervention of the Ar Division would be overwhelming even if under other circumstances the enemy might rally and hold against their attack, no gradual stepping up of the intensity of the fighting intended but instead a vast hammer's blow at the very end of the preparations.
A searchlight briefly swept along the lead ranks of the assault companies as the Ar division was mustered. It was quickly silenced, and the enemy had no indication of recognizing the magnitude of what they were going to be hit by. The escalation of the Stirlin attacks was at the moment fully consuming the interests of the commanders, and Major Ewing's main goal at the moment was to hold off the continuing air attacks of the Gilean Air Force so that his men could comfortably tear through the Stirlin ranks.
The little Habsburg Major had made quite the impression on the young Trajan who commanded the second of the advanced battalions, now pulled out of the north to reinforce Ewing after the massive assaults of the day before. His cool professionalism in the heat of the sustained fighting since the arrival of the reinforcements had served to the conscious imitation of Trajan, and under the subtle guidance of Major Ewing his battalion had proved itself able to hold the line with its motley collection of men of a hundred nations as Ewing's disciplined Marines from three.
Together, they proved their ability to hold the line as the night turned into the day, their lines standing steady against the increased intensity of the assault. Jhayka, nonetheless, was somewhat concerned, and had brought reinforcements in the city closer to the north flank of the line to allow for a counterattack if a breach was made. Unfortunately, the sensor equipment that Jhayka had once used to receive a god's eye view of the battlefield was all chewed to pieces, or overrun. It was possible for the Normans to gain much more effective secrecy. Until daylight, anyway. And so in the fading twilight they advanced down the flattened corridor between industrial district and city, preparing to make their last dash to the front through the rear-area support of the units fighting their current probing actions.
Warleader Erqui and the Ubar Ikmen were at their most tense as they waited in headquarters, the scene of the shattered ruins of the Kalundan railroad station highlighted by the first rays of the rising. This attack would make or break the siege. There were tantalizing hints that the Kalundans were finally running low on critical supplies, too. More and more blackpowder grenades enhanced with aluminium powder were being used instead of grenades with modern explosive cores. The same for their mortar shells. The use of napalm had nearly vanished... The dreaded flamethrowers were silent. The artillery fire was occasional and desultory at best. But they had plenty of improvised explosive devices, satchel charges, for the troops in the buildings, and their small arms ammunition seemed unlimited.
The combination of the air attacks and the fighting in the industrial districts was wearing down their ability to fight, it seemed. The main, glaring exception was to the two power-armoured battalions their assault was directed against. These forces had, in ratio to their small size, truly immense stockpiles, and they were using them today. The bodies from the Stirlin units 'building the pressure' were already piling high in front of the line defended by Ewing and Trajan's battalions.
“We're press home the attack harder, now,” Erqui observed, and clucked an order in the strange language of his people to one of his subordinates before turning back to Tarl Ikmen. “I know it will cost my units, but I appreciate the sincerity of your goal, dearly, in being willing to commit the Ar Division. Yet I will give you no promises. They have proved worthy devils so far.”
“You would say such a thing,” Tarl muttered darkly, recalling his murdered son. This wasn't a game of strategems to him as it was for the Warleader. It was personal. And at this point, with the siege in such doubt, he was half-wishing that Jhayka would just die. Torturing her would be a luxury at this point; he wanted his son avenged, his murderer put down for her treachery. Yet they were about to face their greatest trials yet. And all might be lost if they did not succeed here.
“We will put paid to them yet,” Erqui answered. “We have all of the advantages, and they have none left, not now that we command the air, and hourly more and more aerial attacks pound the city into the rubble. Then you may have such revenge as you wish.”
“You had better be right, for all of our sakes.” A moment's pause, and then: “The intensification of the attack should be well underway from your Stirlin units, yes?” Tarl fixed his gaze on Erqui.
“Yes, Your Excellency,” the Warleader replied modestly, his own mind calculating what would now be happening on the field.
“The sun is beginning to rise. I don't want to lose surprise for the Ar Division; they'll suffer far to many casualties to win than I could tolerate if they did. Order them forward now.”
“We probably haven't reached the greatest intensity of attack by our Stirlin units, Ubar...”
“If we wait, we'll lose any advantage gained, and suffer more, on account of the loss of surprise. They are my men. Order them forward.”
“Very well.”
This time, Tarl was sure that he was right.
Along the front the Stirlin units pushed forward and were torn up badly in doing it. They attacked not only the line across the cleared zone, but punched into the factory district on its flank, and into the buildings of the southern bank, built of wood unlike those of the north, and proved less resilient, requiring more troops to hold them. It was a deep salient that the allies were attacking down, somewhat less than two and a half kilometers wide, and they took proportionate casualties in their operations inside of it, even if the Kalundans could not attack them reliably with artillery as they held the buildings on either side and the air superiourity of the Gileans precluded it.
With the fighting in the warehouses and factories precluding the easy shifting of troops in Arlisa's Corps to reinforce the lines, the majority of the Kalundan reserves were concentrated on the right. By luck or Erqui's understanding of the difficulty in moving troops involved in the tight and bloody fighting in the industrial district on complex evolutions, the Ar Division had been ordered to focus its assault on the left flank, toward the south and the industrial district, and directly at Ewing's battalion. Thirteen thousand, five hundred men attacked on an L-shaped frontage of a kilometer and a half.
They came on out of the morning mist which clogged the air of the river-valley in the morning. Appearing, they were quickly taken under mortar fire, and their flank was assaulted by machine-gun posts in the strongly held factories. But the majority of their force, head-on, drove out of the mist as it was burned off by the rising sun, and thrust straight into Ewing's battalion.
The Habsburg commander and the international forces now had their greatest challenge, as the best and most veteran troops of the enemy surrged against his battalion, outnumbering them more than ten to one, when they had already been facing an intense attack by the Stirlins which had fully occupied their attention. Many in the Ar division hoped to sweep aside the international battalion by sheer momentum, and they had plenty of it, charging forward, a brigade and a regiment directly forcing their way forward against a battalion of some eight hundred troops which was already fully involved with an additional two brigades.
Four thousand Stirlin casualties already laid splayed out before Ewing's battalion, and they were piling up all the faster as his troops concentrated on killing as many of them as possible to weaken the support for the oncoming Ar division. Here, the danger was now that they might be swamped by the enemy, and by sheer weight of numbers overrun, trampled, seized, those under his command slaughtered by explosives at close range. The Normans just kept getting closer and closer, their fire against the battalion very heavy, and their determination and force seeming to be irrestible.
Ewing had ordered a bayonet charge against giant alien predatorial cats before. He was not about to ignore the possibilities for one here, most of all in the factor that it would preserve momentum to his side. Yet the dangers of advancing to far and being cut off were obvious. But there was another factor, another possibility which relied on sheer intimidation. Major Ewing ordered his troops to stand up. The company commanders hesitated for a moment, until their thoughts were won over to the granduer of the display, and they obeyed.
Suddenly the onrushing Normans were confronted with an incredible sight. Eight hundred soldiers in power armour in a single thin line of steel tipped with bayonets presented themselves, as the bullets tore out from their guns on full automatic, the tiny railgun projectiles utterly lethal, often to several men at once, and their firing when standing perfectly steady and cool. They didn't flinch under the massive fire against them, and the bullets of the attackers just bounced off their armour.
The soldiers kept firing. Hundreds of Normans were dead and hundreds more wounded from their first magazines before they were expended in a single minute of sustained firing. Fresh magazines were clapped into place, the first shots were carefully aimed with full computer targeting assist and with that terrible volley nearly another six hundred Normans seemed to fall or wounded. Then automatic fire resumed. Hundreds more were falling. The whole front rank of the assault was decimated and the momentum of the Ar division was stopped cold. Even against standing up power armour in broad daylight and the open, they couldn't prevail thanks to the inferiority of their weapons. Scarcely a dozen troops of the battalion had fallen, if that, and it meant they were killing a hundred to one.
The crisp Norman advance came to an utter halt. They couldn't believe the horrific sight of their enemies standing up and mowing them down calmly with utter impunity to the fire of their weapons. They simply refused to go forward, halting in utter disorder.
The troops of the battalion jeered, and jeered, and in the Alliance ranks in particular their blood was up hot:
“Let's show them!”
“Put 'em paid! Let's throw 'em back! Come on, it's our chance to advance!”
The word advance, uttered by someone, anyone, perhaps a private and perhaps an overeager lieutenant, was all that the Marines needed. Suddenly, a section of one of the two alliance companies and then all of both of them surged forward tremendously, coming down from their own defensive positions and rolling forward in a line of steel.
“Damn all your eagerness, alliance boys!” Ewing exclaimed at the sudden movement. “Get them back! Recall them!” He ordered twice to the company commanders, in a desperate effort to keep his battalion position from being utterly disordered. Yet the effect of the alliance troops moving forward in a charge utterly crushed the morale of their attackers. They weren't just halted, now, but retiring in the face of such an intimidating sight, and it took quite some time to get the companies under control when they saw themselves as winning.
Fortunately, it was just in time, for the Stirlin commanders were not idiots, and the forces opposing Trajan had immediately swung and delivered a counterattack on the flank of the Alliance companies in overwhelming force. They had halted just in time that they could organize themselves and successfully beat off the counterattack without any help. And that was crucially important, for as it turned out, the rest of the Ar division was succeeding tremendously.
Though the thin line of steel and bayonets which had stopped the main frontal assault of the Ar division might have held out with casual ease, the Kalundans in the factory districts were faced with an equal force surging in against them, and against this incredible mass even these excellent defensive postions proved untenable. The Kalundan brigade in the area, already near collapse at sustained fighting with a Stirlin division, finally shattered when forces again larger than it was, and this time determined and veteran Normans, punched through them. For the first time in the whole battle the allies had significant movement in the factory district, and they proceeded to press hard immediately inward, deeper into the maze of industrial works, trying to drive the enemy back at a rate fast enough that they couldn't reestablish their positions.
It also opened up an opportunity in dealing with the advanced battalions despite the utter disaster of the frontal assault, which had at least served to distract Ewing from the situation on his right flank. There was now a gap between the Kalundan forces and Ewing's battalion, a gap big enough that the Norman commander was able to send his full reserve, two whole regiments, surging through it and into the rear of Ewing's battalion. In just a few minutes, power armoured defenders or not, they'd place the line in mortal danger of being encircled and overrun.
Arlisa and Jhayka were by now aware of the threat, but even the strong corps posted in the industrial district had only six brigades, and though most of the factory workers were trapped, unable to evacuate, and therefore still fighting with the soldiers of the corps, there simply weren't enough troops to provide for a large reserve. Only a regiment could be dispatched immediately. A full brigade of militia was being drawn out of the factories as an additional reserve, but this would take hours to accomplish and require the evacuation of much ground.
As they stood in corps headquarters, which was in the basement of a large fabrication plant, the discussion was essentially one of trying to establish control over a battle under conditions where control often scarcely existed above the platoon level. Arlisa framed it succinctly: “This is going to gouge deep holes into whole defensive posture in the industrial district, Your Highness. Even if we succeed in forcing the enemy back we're depleting to many areas. The factory defenders will have to be moved back in most cases and our control of easily half of the factory district will be lost.”
“I know.” Jhayka seemed vaguely frowning as she looked at the reader-board display, updating unit positions in real time still, at least. Or supposedly doing so. In this sort of fighting there was considerable inaccuracy which had to be accounted for. “Major General, we'll just have to abandon that half of the factory district. We can allow the armed workers from a lot of the territory close to the city but still beyond the lines to evacuate while there's still time—with the reduced area your forces will be defending they'd just prove a hindrance, and a waste of food.
“And I want you to prepare even further that, for an evacuation to the central quay, come to it.” The central quay was between the two barge canals into the industrial district, a small plot of rectangular land surrounded on three sides by water, containing two factories and seven large warehouses, even the areas not covered by a heavy roofed building laced with railroad tracks, constructing cranes, and stacks of containers. Most of their food and ammunition was already stored there.
“A redoubt, yes—disconnected from the city, though, Your Highness—you're prepared to abandon the effort to keep touch between the industrial district and the city? Do you think both can hold independently?”
“I'd rather not see it happen. But it's a worst-case scenario. For the moment... We keep trying to get a confirmation from Major Ewing about his withdrawal while we concentrate the reserves. A brigade and a regiment might do the trick from this side... I actually think that keeping touch between the two districts is worth a fair loss of territory held. The civilian population is entirely confined on the north bank now, or directly along the riverfront on the south bank.”
“Marshal d'Kelius could pull a division off the eastern side of the south bank to launch a counterattack,” Arlisa observed.
“We'd lose a lot of the south bank, then.”
“But we'll keep touch between all the sectors of the city we can still defend.”
“You're right, General.” Jhayka smiled tightly, and turned to the communications section, stepping over several paces. “I want an order sent to central command, instructing Marshal d'Kelius to pull the 4th division off the east sector and fall back into the city, and prepare for a counterattack to reestablish a solid connection with the industrial district.”
“At once, Marshal!”
“And get me another try on contact with Major Ewing, understood?”
“Yes ma'am.”
The minutes passed in a tedious nervousness as the morning wore on. There was little news of what had happened, and the speculation began to mount in the murmurings of the staff officers that the reinforcement battalion might have been cut off and destroyed. Finally there was a desperate message from Major Ewing that reached them with an electric shock to the nerves:
“We have cut our way through the enemy encirclement and the battalion is falling back into the city with MAJ Trajan's in support. Request further orders.”
“Just like a solid Marine commander ought...” Jhayka was smiling faintly when she spoke again. “Send: 'Stabilize your lines and prepare both battalions for a counterattack.'”
Then she looked to Arlisa. “I'm going forward to take direct command of the counterattack on this side. Don't worry. I won't get in to close—just the usual parameters for a divisional commander. This combat is to intense these days for my theatrics of the earlier siege to work again.”
“Best of luck to you, Marshal.”
Jhayka flexed her ears in a vague way, and didn't say a thing further, thinking the gesture sufficient as she headed out. Arlisa was left to the task of preparing the counterattack, which she was quite capable of doing.
As for the efforts of the enemy, however, the Warleader Erqui was, having cut off the industrial district from the city, now exploiting it to his advantage. He held a strip between 2.5km and 3km wide between the industrial districts and the south bank section of the city of Kalunda proper. This he was now immediately fortifying, and placing strong battalions of mortars in the centre along the rubble of the wall, to prepare for the counterattacks he expected.
For a moment, while the Kalundan forces recovered and troops were shifted to prepare for the counterattack, the field of battle was largely silent as the Warleader rushed his forces in an effort to concentrate enough and fortify enough that they could hold what they had gained. He had become in his own way a thoroughly modern general; while the celebrating was left to Tarl Ikmen and the Emir at the encirclement, he just worked vigorously to exploit the breakthrough and keep the Kalundan defenders on the defensive.
His most important aid in this effort, however, was the fact that the modern battalions had seen the loss of some of their anti-missile/anti-bomb defences in the hasty retirement, which meant that close air suppport for defending against an enemy counterattack would be much easier to accomplish than it had been for the attack itself. Getting the forward air observers into position and preparing his troops for very close aerial operations by the Gileans to support them was just as important to his effort as seeing that his troops were strongly posted.
For Tarl Ikmen, though, it was all a moment of celebration. His Ar division, despite the casualties, had essentially won the battle, perhaps the whole siege, for the allied army and for the Norman Empire in general. In barbaric repose he retired to celebrate the great victory before the battle was even truly won.
It wasn't until the early afternoon that the Kalundans had moved the forces they needed into position for a general counterattack from both directions. The coordination took longer. It was about 1500 hours and they simply couldn't delay any longer. They had to attack, lest the enemy consolidate their gains to such a point they could not be dislodged. Jhayka had an improvised divisional headquarters to coordinate her force, the brigade and regiment to be used for the assault, the reserve battalion of the 14th brigade which had been smashed in the attack of the Ar Division reprising its old role in addition to them, and a few other light units.
At 1510 hours she gave the order for the attack to proceed on both sides of the gap. She immediately sent her own forces forward, operating her headquarters from a concrete building, a machine shop attached to a repair facility for the city's industrial railroad, very close to the fighting but out of direct line of sight with the enemy. Sarina's attack was reasonably well-coordinated, beginning only six minutes later.
Initially, the strong thrusts forced the allied defenders back. They held from building to building, steadily being pushed toward the open ground. For an hour the stiff attack pressed on forward in this manner, getting closer and closer to open ground, until the last line of the buildings was cleared and ahead were the Normans dug in, five hundred meters on either side from the new Kalundan positions, utterly vulnerable. But the allies had their forward air controllers in position, and they were already coolly radioing in positions for the fighter-bombers which had been orbiting well clear of the city.
Even as Ewing and Trajan's battalions went to the fore to spearhead the attack to drive out the allied troops from their positions, they were now closing. They immediately had been given the orders and accelerating and rising to high altitude could not be detected by the primitive air defences of Kalunda, based almost entirely around those two battalions at this point after days of heavy attrition, until much to late to respond to their first attacks. Normally this would not be a problem, but with the air defences of the battalions already reduced, the plunging bombs and cluster munitions of the Gilean fighters quickly turned the cleared ground into a zone of massacre.
A whole division was chewed apart in minutes, though the advanced spearpoint battalions suffered lightly and continued to attack, indeed, all the more vigorously. For the moment the forces under Jhayka's command were untouched, and they forged their way foward. Yet another wave of bombers came in, and dropping their bombs ahead of Ewing and Trajan's battalions laid a pattern of heavy mines with them. The Habsburg Major saw them come in and ordered a halt to his own advance; their power armoured suits were not strong enough to defend against such mines, designed specifically against them, and with most of their artillery lost they had no way to easily clear the field.
Which meant that it would have to be done by bangalore torpedoes, slowly. Joachim Ewing was not easily given to abandoning a mission, and so halting the advance of his companies and issuing orders the same to Trajan, the two battalions began to worm their way forward, deployed support weapons keeping the heads of the allies down as they forced their way toward their lines, blasting paths through the aircraft-deployed minefield with the bangalore torpedoes.
In the meantime, however, the attacking force behind them was under sustained assault from the air, and had essentially halted. Sarina had found that the division had already taken 30% casualties, at least, and the number was rising continuously under the aerial assault. Whole regiments had effectively ceased to exist when the aircraft concentrated on them. But she kept the force in place because the advanced battalions still had a chance of breaking through.
Jhayka's force was moving swiftly forward, but then the Gilean Air Force proved the master of the situation again for that attack. They deployed aerial mines behind the advancing troops, creating a treacherous and tangled ground with little possibility of retreat, before returning to focus on the troops of Sarina's command. Jhayka, standing surrounded by bare and dank concrete walls and with her maps laid out on silent machine-tools, had no choice but to order the forces forward. They now had to conquer or die, and the whole attack was rapidly turning into a disaster.
Erqui had strongly posted not just mortars but also all sorts of heavy support weapons on the rubble line of the wall, and these had the power at the range that the advanced battalions were getting to so that they might occasionally actually penetrate the armour of the unlucky, and more attackers were killed by lucky direct RPG hits on their powered armour. Several more were lost to the air raids, though their casualties so far were still light.
Yet with the difficulty in getting ammunition to Jhayka's soldiers through the minefield, they were hung up and couldn't press their own assault while their supplies of bullets dwindled. By 1800 hours the attack had utterly stalled, though Jhayka's troops had gotten close enough to the Norman lines to throw grenades into their trenches, yet then Erqui unleashed his counterattack. Cold-heartedly sending two regiments out onto each flank of the advanced battalions, toward the north, toward the city, these regiments cleared a path for a second regiment trailing each through the minefield their own forces had laid, taking hundreds of casualties to allow the attack to proceed so swiftly that Ewing and Trajan could not meet it.
They were forced to retreat to avoid encirclement, and with their retreat, the Gilean Air Force could turn its attention to Jhayka's troops. They were, quite simply, massacred out in the open, and she could only watch in bitter horror as the attack collapsed and thousands were lost, unable to escape. Virtually silent, she issued no orders, forcing herself simply to listen to every report of the massacre, until at last the enemy had not only finished off her attack, but were preparing for a counterattack. The Gilean fighter-bombers dropped concussive bombs along their own minefield to clear it handily, and then substantial elements of the Stirlin forces and the whole of the Ar division, still able to fight despite the vicious casualties it had taken earlier in the day, surged into the industrial district with the forces that would have opposed them having been destroyed from the air.
And the fighter-bombers moved on to other targets, systematically starting to take apart the Kalundan defences in the factory district with smart bombs. Quickly the situation spiraled, so that a brigade with only the strength of a regiment was the only force fighting against a strong division's worth of troops pushing against them. “Put the reserve battalion forward,” Jhayka ordered at last. “And instruct Arlisa to fall back into her redoubt. The air force will not be able to do so much damage to us there, and we can get some anti-air back up that can cover such a concentrated area. Instruct her to inform the Marshal D'Kelius that she ought to shift such forces as she can to try and cover the rest of the south bank again...”
The messages were dispatched, and Jhayka looked around, and made up her mind. “I'm going forward with the reserves to conduct the defence.” Before those around her could protest, she peremptorily strode swiftly toward the door, and started outside...
And at that moment a smart bomb cut through the concrete walls of the machine shop and exploded. Everyone was killed or mortally wounded outright inside. Jhayka had gotten several paces beyond the building and turned to the left to head toward the front when the blast took place. As the building blew up she was showered with concrete fragments. One tore through her left ear, not removing it but creating a hole right down the centre, and lower; all of her left side struck by countless fragments which riddled the flash. The second finger of six on her left hand was struck off at the first joint. A heavy fragment tore deep into the buttox leaving a heavy trail behind... And the largest swept low along the ground, and struck off her left leg just below the knee. She fell, wordlessly, crippled and cut through in a sudden moment, and bleeding profusely from the shattered stump, she lay dying on the ground.
DAY 45,
Kalunda.
Jhayka itl dhin Intuit's death or survival was not decided on the field of battle that summer day on Gilead. Her wounds by human standards were arguably lethal. Her whole left side was riddled through with flecks of rock, and though she might have well survived that, with her leg gone she was hemhorraging blood horrifically fast. Damage from her ear to the base of a nonexistant toe had perforated a whole side of her body. Yet for all that, her life or death had been settled a million years before, instead, not by God but by the mere processes of evolution.
Taloran females had not evolved in the same way as human females; their hips had not gotten broader to accomadate their larger brains as they clawed their way toward sentience. They instead were guided toward a twofold approach to successful childbearing. First of all, brain development was pushed back in their children, while early functioning, common in many mammals and mammal-like creatures, was retained. The head still got somewhat larger, however—and Talorans had narrow hips in comparison mammalian females in general, let alone humans.
By evolutionary standards, the solution was a brutal one, blunt, unsophisticated, and inelegant. Millions of years of proto-Talorans had selected toward an obvious and simple way to deal with the problem: Simply endure the suffering of an extended and exquisitely painful childbirth more easily. Taloran females stopped going into shock. Hypoperfusion was essentially almost impossible to induce in them; as a human doctor studying Taloran physiology remarked, “It's possible, but what's the point when they've already been reduced to the size and consistency of a hamburger?”
Where a human would have gone into shock, and therefore expired, either of the state of shock itself or of bloodloss from the open wounds, Jhayka was left with the tremendous and horrible experience of being aware through the entire process. She clawed herself up, surrounded by rubble, and feeling the most intense pain from her buttocks first, tore strips from the light silk of her robe that stretched over her uniform—so preciously easy to tear in a desperate emergency like this—and began to essentially stuff the hole in herself to stem the blood loss.
It wasn't until she tried to get up after that, silent with the pain, unable to bring herself to speak, but very much aware, that she released her left leg was no longer there, by dint of collapsing down onto it as she tried to get up, in a pool of her own blood. The desperation of the wound's severity was obvious. There was plenty of her cape left, however, and in combination with her belt she was able to fashion a tourniquet just below her knee and cover it in silk besides. During that, in turn, she discovered the missing finger, and dealt with it as well.
Stubbornly holding the family sword in hand, she began to painfully, pitifully crawl her way to the rear, her mind functioning in simple terms, desperate with the pain, as she dragged herself. All the while the aerial attacks were continuing around her, and the Norman offensive was pushing hard against the area right behind her. Somehow, through it all, she had managed to get fifty meters to the rear before she collapsed unconscious, even her physiology unable to prevent it at that point.
Captain Askan Carhill had fought throughout the battle, first seeing action on the third day of the siege and then fighting continuously since, the only lulls being the lulls on the whole front. He had gone from a company commander to a battalion commander over the course of the action, and now he was leading his battalion in a desperate retreat from contact with the enemy as all Kalundan forces in the area collapsed under the hammer-blows that they had received and the constant aerial attacks.
His battalion was being devastated from the air and from the heavy pursuit of the Norman 'Ar' Division, but despite all of this suffering he had kept them organized and in retreat, at first toward the redoubt... But then they had come in contact with advancing Stirlin troops. Their line of retreat was cut off. In desperation they headed to the west, sometimes linking up with other units just to have their numbers whittled down even more by the endless air attacks.
Night was falling, and tracers spitting into the air showed them that the quay redoubt was holding out well. Yet there would be no shelter for them at that place. They could not get to it. Trying to avoid much larger enemy units the battalion backtracked slightly, and at 2100 hours was able to strike a surprise blow against the support formations of a Stirlin brigade, capturing the brigade commander in the chaos as they appeared out of the shattered forest of industrial plants and cut through the headquarters of the brigade.
Askan and his second in command, Captain Underwood, rushed forward to personally interrogate the captured Stirlin Brigadier, for hope that the information they could gain from her would prove useful in trying to find a route on which their battalion could retreat. It was on arrival that the two men were shocked. Next to the brigadier in her vicious leather-style riding uniform was a man with red cross patches in the uniform of the Gilean regular army—one of the medics sent along with the forward air controllers. He was bent down over a prostrate form.
And on that, the two officers gazed with shock. It was the Princess Jhayka. The worst sort of rumours had spread about her fate in the hours after the defence had collapsed, and they had proved out to be entirely true, as they saw her wretched condition, clearly alive by the narrowest of margins. Had it not been for the sheerest accident of the enemy's dispositions, and our own blind misfortune, she would have been made a prisoner..
But there was no time to think about that. “Can she be moved?” Askan queried sharply of the medic.
“No. She's much to serious and on the verge of death. If you want her to live she'll have to stay here.” The medic answered rather snappily... And began to choke. To choke from the work of the virtually translucent, pallid hand of Jhayka's which had lanced up to grip into his throat.
“He's lying. They were... Just about to move me.” She rasped out brokenly. “Attack the rear of their brigade at once. It's spread out, and the tempo of air operations is decreasing... Whilst they rearm.”
Both the Gilean medic and the Stirlin officer seemed quite surprised that she had been able to process and remember all that had gone on. Askan Carhill had his information, however. A single order crackled over the radio and his battalion pushed forward into the rear of the unprepared and headless Stirlin brigade.
“What then, Marshal?” Their guns were drawn on the medic and the Stirlin brigadier.
“Southwest as soon as you clear them, until you reach water. Then find the strongest point you can and fortify it with all the men you have. Hold there until you... We... Are relieved.” Her eyes fluttered closed again at the exertion even that had required.
“Well, we have what we need. Get rid of the prisoners, except the Gilean medic. Bind him and take him with us. I don't trust him after he lied about Her Highnesses' condition...”
“The Brigadier, too?”
“No!” Jhayka spoke again, unable to keep her eyes open but still hearing from her good ear; the other one was crumpled and bloody. “She gave me back my sword. Let her live. She'll come with us and you'll protect her no matter what. She had a choice to mistreat me and she chose honour. Show it back to her.”
“Of course, Marshal.” The bound medic and Brigadier were placed on litters just like the wounded Jhayka, while the rest of the staff company of the brigade was, to put it brutally clear, executed on the spot. They proceeded forward, then, following their battalion on a very bloody but successful attack into the rear of the Stirlin brigade, routing it.
And then, the supreme commander of the siege jostling painfully on a litter, they moved to the southwest, and marched, and marched, sometimes under air attack, sometimes clashing with Norman patrols, their numbers steadily whittling down all the time. The men simply dropped away to their deaths, or to try and escape in small pockets when they got lost from the main body, and the force was so severely depleted that even after the troops which had stumbled into it themselves were accounted, there were only 568 effectives in the ranks when they began to stumble through the wreckage of a bombed-out factory and saw before them iron tracks, and a plunge down to the water, lit by the moons and lit also by the flash of tracers and the explosion of bombs over the quay.
They were at the very mouth of the northern of the two service canals, and just across from them was the secure end of the quay, opposite from the heavy fighting around the warehouse at the front, which was now garrisoned by three thousand men who were holding off in that strongly fortified position the better part of a Stirlin division which had finally concentrated against them despite the chaos Askan had caused with his mad charge of only a few hours before.
It was midnight. In front of them there was a warehouse. Built on half an acre of land it was 90ft high, 250ft wide, and 180 feet long, with huge ferrocrete highly reinforced walls a meter thick, the substance must stronger than the concrete used in most of the construction in the city which had already held up well. It also appeared basically abandoned. The company pushed toward it.
Inside they found seventeen Kalundan workers who had tried along with those sent back to escape from the industrial district earlier, but had failed, all women from one of the textile factories. That left them with 585 defenders, two prisoners, and fourty-four wounded. They were quickly able to prepare strong defences around the warehouse, but there was no means to contact the quay in their possession.
Not only that, but the Kalundan medics had made it very clear that Jhayka had lost so much blood that she would die in fairly short order. Carhill resolved to do something about it; yet there seemed nothing that could be done. Only the effort of one of the textile girls saved the situation, and the Marshal.
She approached, flushing brightly, and clearly highly embarassed. “Ah, Captain, Sir...”
“Yes?”
“I have a flag. It was one of the ones we made before we were sent to arms, but which hadn't been distributed yet.. And, well, err, when we went to retreat I wrapped it around myself so I could stay warm, and I know it was wrong to do but it gets so cold down by the river and....”
Askan laughed. “My dear, the fates have given us a great benefit in this. Don't apologize. But give it to me. You have saved the Marshal's life.”
The girl, wide-eyed, took off enough of her clothes to unwrap the flag from her body, which took many strokes, for it was wound tightly, and immediately Askan looked around as she did so. “I need a volunteer to raise the flag on the building!”
“Sir!” A sergeant came forward: “Let me lead my whole section to do it, Sir.”
“Of course. Get to it, Eduard.”
“Sir!” The Sergeant, Eduard Bouras, and his volunteered file set off at once with the flag. There was no flag-pole. They ended up having to tie the very large banner, four meters long in its rectangular form, to a long length of railroad track, which had to be manhandled up the stairs by means of a pulley and then jammed into the already broken elevator mechanism to keep it erect. But they succeeded, and succeeded tremendously.
Arlisa had thought the Marshal was dead; she had reported it to Julio and Sarina, who had called Major Ewing back to serve as her Chief of Staff in a bout of uncertainty. Nobody had told Danielle yet; only Ilavna could do that, Julio thought, and Ilavna was not yet ready to do it.
Though Arlisa's forces had retired to their redoubt successfully, the rest of the industrial district was occupied, and the al-Farani reserves on the south bank had been used to seize not less than one third of the south bank of the city, all of it to the east except for a few blocks near the waterfront where reserve troops from the north bank had crossed the bridges in time to just barely defend the areas which still had civilians in them, with the support of the guns of Danielle's riverboats, which under the sustained air attacks of the past two days had already suffered half their numbers sunk or crippled.
The whole battle seemed like it was surely going to be lost. But then Arlisa saw it, and all of those fighting on the quay saw it. Through the bursting bombs and the green glow of the tracers, backlit by uncontrolled fires in the industrial district, the flag of the city of Kalunda flew proudly on the Sackon Industries Warehouse. Part of the rest of the industrial district was holding out after all.
Lacking any regular means of communication, Arlisa's staff was finally able to use a signal lamp to get the attention of the defenders of the Sackon warehouse. Initially they had no way to respond, but then hit on using a powerful flashlight and a concave mirror which had been found in storage, and in this fashion managed to get a beam back across. the news was electric:
WE HOLD. HAVE 1 STIRLIN BRG PRISONER. PRNCS JHAYKA WITH US WOUNDED. SEND TALORAN BLOOD.
The message reached Julio's headquarters about five minutes later, where Sarina read it with it Ewing, and a sigh of relief swept through the headquarters. Julio seemed to have a great weight relieved from his shoulders, but then he posed the obvious question: “how can we ever get any supplies through the blockade? If we try boats on the river they'll be blasted to pieces from the continuous air attack.”
“I can do it, Your Majesty.”
Everyone turned around and saw Ilavna standing there, incredibly grave. “I know the severity of her condition.” A hand was held up. “Please, do not ask how. Do not ask right now. But I have in my medical kit what I need, and I will go help her myself. I can take only enough to stabilize her for perhaps a day or so; you will need to find some way to rescue her, to bring her to the hospital in the city by then. But if I go now I will be able to reach her in time to give her twenty-four hours more life.”
“How will get through the city, girl? You will have to cross through two sets of enemy lines! It is utter madness...”
“I will walk through them.”
“How!?”
“They will not see me, Your Majesty.”
And she began to walk forward... And began to waver and become indistinct, as though she were skipping along the edges of the mind. A low murmur of shock ran through the war-room. She refocused, and turned to Julio with a tight smile while in the background Ewing hissed: “a psyker, of course,” but Ilavna ignored this.
“In the dark? And I wearing things more able to fit into what the mind naturally expects to see in a place? No. They will not know that I am there.”
“Then go as fast as you can for the sake of your liege,” Julio answered, for the first time in the whole siege feeling genuinely unnerved even as he was also relieved.
“I will.” Ilavna looked to Sarina. “Have your sister tell Danielle everything.” She turned, and without further words, left, stopping first to get one of Jhayka's black capes to drape over herself, and with that, the perfect aid to her psychic disguise when in the dark, she headed out, driving out and across the river's bridges, not yet attacked by the allied desire for a quick victory, that they might be seized. And she drove until she reached their own lines in the city... And then, not even reporting to the personnel there, she did as she promised. She vanished, and she walked forward.
She did her duty for the house that her ancestors served. But it would only lend her liege-lady a day's life at the very best, sixteen or twenty hours at worst, and the Gilean Air Force declared that, all things remaining even, that would not be sufficient to save her. The sky above Ilavna was lit with a devil's mix of fire and tracers, arcing light onto the billowing clouds of the deritus of battle, and highlighting the endless progression of shattered buildings. The city was dying around them, and through it, Ilavna walked on, out into no-man's land.
DAY 45,
Kalunda,
On the Siege Lines.
In the pre-dawn darkness strange shadows were cast by the orange light of the continuous fires burning from inside the city of Kalunda. The airstrikes which had been rolling over the place for the past two days continued throughout the night with intermittent losses, such that a fair number of Gilean flyers were now guests (and very sumptuously maintained ones, at that) of the allied headquarters. Ahead, beyond the old trench-lines and in the shadow of the ruins of the railroad station, the shadows were cast by a very different force.
During the past two months of heavy, modern fighting which Jhayka's escape from Ar had triggered, a certain number of veterans, all residents of Ar who had fought against Jhayka during her escape, and since then had been subjected to continuous improvements in discipline and culling of the undisciplined through the violence of the combat against Kalunda, had ultimately been reduced to the size of a division, and split off to form this elite unit, the “Ar” Division named after the city they all came from.
Recognizing the desperation of their position, Tarl Ikmen had elected to spare no expense in guaranteeing the breakthrough and encirclement of the industrial district. He had ordered the Ar division to provide the force requested by Erqui, and in doing so commit himself to one last great bloodletting to smash through the Kalundan lines and give them the one decisive victory they had so-far lacked in the siege, which would leave the whole south bank of the river vulnerable to an imminent collapse from a big push. Therefore he had ordered the Ar Division forward.
Thirteen thousand five hundred men of Ar were now being prepared to commit to a battle which had already started. For the past twenty minutes the Stirlin troops along the front with the advanced battalions and their Kalundan flank guards had been worming their way forward with the support of heavy mortar fire. Slowly the force of this attack was mounting as more and more troops were brought in. Erqui's goal was to push the enemy as far as possible, so that the sudden and sharp intervention of the Ar Division would be overwhelming even if under other circumstances the enemy might rally and hold against their attack, no gradual stepping up of the intensity of the fighting intended but instead a vast hammer's blow at the very end of the preparations.
A searchlight briefly swept along the lead ranks of the assault companies as the Ar division was mustered. It was quickly silenced, and the enemy had no indication of recognizing the magnitude of what they were going to be hit by. The escalation of the Stirlin attacks was at the moment fully consuming the interests of the commanders, and Major Ewing's main goal at the moment was to hold off the continuing air attacks of the Gilean Air Force so that his men could comfortably tear through the Stirlin ranks.
The little Habsburg Major had made quite the impression on the young Trajan who commanded the second of the advanced battalions, now pulled out of the north to reinforce Ewing after the massive assaults of the day before. His cool professionalism in the heat of the sustained fighting since the arrival of the reinforcements had served to the conscious imitation of Trajan, and under the subtle guidance of Major Ewing his battalion had proved itself able to hold the line with its motley collection of men of a hundred nations as Ewing's disciplined Marines from three.
Together, they proved their ability to hold the line as the night turned into the day, their lines standing steady against the increased intensity of the assault. Jhayka, nonetheless, was somewhat concerned, and had brought reinforcements in the city closer to the north flank of the line to allow for a counterattack if a breach was made. Unfortunately, the sensor equipment that Jhayka had once used to receive a god's eye view of the battlefield was all chewed to pieces, or overrun. It was possible for the Normans to gain much more effective secrecy. Until daylight, anyway. And so in the fading twilight they advanced down the flattened corridor between industrial district and city, preparing to make their last dash to the front through the rear-area support of the units fighting their current probing actions.
Warleader Erqui and the Ubar Ikmen were at their most tense as they waited in headquarters, the scene of the shattered ruins of the Kalundan railroad station highlighted by the first rays of the rising. This attack would make or break the siege. There were tantalizing hints that the Kalundans were finally running low on critical supplies, too. More and more blackpowder grenades enhanced with aluminium powder were being used instead of grenades with modern explosive cores. The same for their mortar shells. The use of napalm had nearly vanished... The dreaded flamethrowers were silent. The artillery fire was occasional and desultory at best. But they had plenty of improvised explosive devices, satchel charges, for the troops in the buildings, and their small arms ammunition seemed unlimited.
The combination of the air attacks and the fighting in the industrial districts was wearing down their ability to fight, it seemed. The main, glaring exception was to the two power-armoured battalions their assault was directed against. These forces had, in ratio to their small size, truly immense stockpiles, and they were using them today. The bodies from the Stirlin units 'building the pressure' were already piling high in front of the line defended by Ewing and Trajan's battalions.
“We're press home the attack harder, now,” Erqui observed, and clucked an order in the strange language of his people to one of his subordinates before turning back to Tarl Ikmen. “I know it will cost my units, but I appreciate the sincerity of your goal, dearly, in being willing to commit the Ar Division. Yet I will give you no promises. They have proved worthy devils so far.”
“You would say such a thing,” Tarl muttered darkly, recalling his murdered son. This wasn't a game of strategems to him as it was for the Warleader. It was personal. And at this point, with the siege in such doubt, he was half-wishing that Jhayka would just die. Torturing her would be a luxury at this point; he wanted his son avenged, his murderer put down for her treachery. Yet they were about to face their greatest trials yet. And all might be lost if they did not succeed here.
“We will put paid to them yet,” Erqui answered. “We have all of the advantages, and they have none left, not now that we command the air, and hourly more and more aerial attacks pound the city into the rubble. Then you may have such revenge as you wish.”
“You had better be right, for all of our sakes.” A moment's pause, and then: “The intensification of the attack should be well underway from your Stirlin units, yes?” Tarl fixed his gaze on Erqui.
“Yes, Your Excellency,” the Warleader replied modestly, his own mind calculating what would now be happening on the field.
“The sun is beginning to rise. I don't want to lose surprise for the Ar Division; they'll suffer far to many casualties to win than I could tolerate if they did. Order them forward now.”
“We probably haven't reached the greatest intensity of attack by our Stirlin units, Ubar...”
“If we wait, we'll lose any advantage gained, and suffer more, on account of the loss of surprise. They are my men. Order them forward.”
“Very well.”
This time, Tarl was sure that he was right.
Along the front the Stirlin units pushed forward and were torn up badly in doing it. They attacked not only the line across the cleared zone, but punched into the factory district on its flank, and into the buildings of the southern bank, built of wood unlike those of the north, and proved less resilient, requiring more troops to hold them. It was a deep salient that the allies were attacking down, somewhat less than two and a half kilometers wide, and they took proportionate casualties in their operations inside of it, even if the Kalundans could not attack them reliably with artillery as they held the buildings on either side and the air superiourity of the Gileans precluded it.
With the fighting in the warehouses and factories precluding the easy shifting of troops in Arlisa's Corps to reinforce the lines, the majority of the Kalundan reserves were concentrated on the right. By luck or Erqui's understanding of the difficulty in moving troops involved in the tight and bloody fighting in the industrial district on complex evolutions, the Ar Division had been ordered to focus its assault on the left flank, toward the south and the industrial district, and directly at Ewing's battalion. Thirteen thousand, five hundred men attacked on an L-shaped frontage of a kilometer and a half.
They came on out of the morning mist which clogged the air of the river-valley in the morning. Appearing, they were quickly taken under mortar fire, and their flank was assaulted by machine-gun posts in the strongly held factories. But the majority of their force, head-on, drove out of the mist as it was burned off by the rising sun, and thrust straight into Ewing's battalion.
The Habsburg commander and the international forces now had their greatest challenge, as the best and most veteran troops of the enemy surrged against his battalion, outnumbering them more than ten to one, when they had already been facing an intense attack by the Stirlins which had fully occupied their attention. Many in the Ar division hoped to sweep aside the international battalion by sheer momentum, and they had plenty of it, charging forward, a brigade and a regiment directly forcing their way forward against a battalion of some eight hundred troops which was already fully involved with an additional two brigades.
Four thousand Stirlin casualties already laid splayed out before Ewing's battalion, and they were piling up all the faster as his troops concentrated on killing as many of them as possible to weaken the support for the oncoming Ar division. Here, the danger was now that they might be swamped by the enemy, and by sheer weight of numbers overrun, trampled, seized, those under his command slaughtered by explosives at close range. The Normans just kept getting closer and closer, their fire against the battalion very heavy, and their determination and force seeming to be irrestible.
Ewing had ordered a bayonet charge against giant alien predatorial cats before. He was not about to ignore the possibilities for one here, most of all in the factor that it would preserve momentum to his side. Yet the dangers of advancing to far and being cut off were obvious. But there was another factor, another possibility which relied on sheer intimidation. Major Ewing ordered his troops to stand up. The company commanders hesitated for a moment, until their thoughts were won over to the granduer of the display, and they obeyed.
Suddenly the onrushing Normans were confronted with an incredible sight. Eight hundred soldiers in power armour in a single thin line of steel tipped with bayonets presented themselves, as the bullets tore out from their guns on full automatic, the tiny railgun projectiles utterly lethal, often to several men at once, and their firing when standing perfectly steady and cool. They didn't flinch under the massive fire against them, and the bullets of the attackers just bounced off their armour.
The soldiers kept firing. Hundreds of Normans were dead and hundreds more wounded from their first magazines before they were expended in a single minute of sustained firing. Fresh magazines were clapped into place, the first shots were carefully aimed with full computer targeting assist and with that terrible volley nearly another six hundred Normans seemed to fall or wounded. Then automatic fire resumed. Hundreds more were falling. The whole front rank of the assault was decimated and the momentum of the Ar division was stopped cold. Even against standing up power armour in broad daylight and the open, they couldn't prevail thanks to the inferiority of their weapons. Scarcely a dozen troops of the battalion had fallen, if that, and it meant they were killing a hundred to one.
The crisp Norman advance came to an utter halt. They couldn't believe the horrific sight of their enemies standing up and mowing them down calmly with utter impunity to the fire of their weapons. They simply refused to go forward, halting in utter disorder.
The troops of the battalion jeered, and jeered, and in the Alliance ranks in particular their blood was up hot:
“Let's show them!”
“Put 'em paid! Let's throw 'em back! Come on, it's our chance to advance!”
The word advance, uttered by someone, anyone, perhaps a private and perhaps an overeager lieutenant, was all that the Marines needed. Suddenly, a section of one of the two alliance companies and then all of both of them surged forward tremendously, coming down from their own defensive positions and rolling forward in a line of steel.
“Damn all your eagerness, alliance boys!” Ewing exclaimed at the sudden movement. “Get them back! Recall them!” He ordered twice to the company commanders, in a desperate effort to keep his battalion position from being utterly disordered. Yet the effect of the alliance troops moving forward in a charge utterly crushed the morale of their attackers. They weren't just halted, now, but retiring in the face of such an intimidating sight, and it took quite some time to get the companies under control when they saw themselves as winning.
Fortunately, it was just in time, for the Stirlin commanders were not idiots, and the forces opposing Trajan had immediately swung and delivered a counterattack on the flank of the Alliance companies in overwhelming force. They had halted just in time that they could organize themselves and successfully beat off the counterattack without any help. And that was crucially important, for as it turned out, the rest of the Ar division was succeeding tremendously.
Though the thin line of steel and bayonets which had stopped the main frontal assault of the Ar division might have held out with casual ease, the Kalundans in the factory districts were faced with an equal force surging in against them, and against this incredible mass even these excellent defensive postions proved untenable. The Kalundan brigade in the area, already near collapse at sustained fighting with a Stirlin division, finally shattered when forces again larger than it was, and this time determined and veteran Normans, punched through them. For the first time in the whole battle the allies had significant movement in the factory district, and they proceeded to press hard immediately inward, deeper into the maze of industrial works, trying to drive the enemy back at a rate fast enough that they couldn't reestablish their positions.
It also opened up an opportunity in dealing with the advanced battalions despite the utter disaster of the frontal assault, which had at least served to distract Ewing from the situation on his right flank. There was now a gap between the Kalundan forces and Ewing's battalion, a gap big enough that the Norman commander was able to send his full reserve, two whole regiments, surging through it and into the rear of Ewing's battalion. In just a few minutes, power armoured defenders or not, they'd place the line in mortal danger of being encircled and overrun.
Arlisa and Jhayka were by now aware of the threat, but even the strong corps posted in the industrial district had only six brigades, and though most of the factory workers were trapped, unable to evacuate, and therefore still fighting with the soldiers of the corps, there simply weren't enough troops to provide for a large reserve. Only a regiment could be dispatched immediately. A full brigade of militia was being drawn out of the factories as an additional reserve, but this would take hours to accomplish and require the evacuation of much ground.
As they stood in corps headquarters, which was in the basement of a large fabrication plant, the discussion was essentially one of trying to establish control over a battle under conditions where control often scarcely existed above the platoon level. Arlisa framed it succinctly: “This is going to gouge deep holes into whole defensive posture in the industrial district, Your Highness. Even if we succeed in forcing the enemy back we're depleting to many areas. The factory defenders will have to be moved back in most cases and our control of easily half of the factory district will be lost.”
“I know.” Jhayka seemed vaguely frowning as she looked at the reader-board display, updating unit positions in real time still, at least. Or supposedly doing so. In this sort of fighting there was considerable inaccuracy which had to be accounted for. “Major General, we'll just have to abandon that half of the factory district. We can allow the armed workers from a lot of the territory close to the city but still beyond the lines to evacuate while there's still time—with the reduced area your forces will be defending they'd just prove a hindrance, and a waste of food.
“And I want you to prepare even further that, for an evacuation to the central quay, come to it.” The central quay was between the two barge canals into the industrial district, a small plot of rectangular land surrounded on three sides by water, containing two factories and seven large warehouses, even the areas not covered by a heavy roofed building laced with railroad tracks, constructing cranes, and stacks of containers. Most of their food and ammunition was already stored there.
“A redoubt, yes—disconnected from the city, though, Your Highness—you're prepared to abandon the effort to keep touch between the industrial district and the city? Do you think both can hold independently?”
“I'd rather not see it happen. But it's a worst-case scenario. For the moment... We keep trying to get a confirmation from Major Ewing about his withdrawal while we concentrate the reserves. A brigade and a regiment might do the trick from this side... I actually think that keeping touch between the two districts is worth a fair loss of territory held. The civilian population is entirely confined on the north bank now, or directly along the riverfront on the south bank.”
“Marshal d'Kelius could pull a division off the eastern side of the south bank to launch a counterattack,” Arlisa observed.
“We'd lose a lot of the south bank, then.”
“But we'll keep touch between all the sectors of the city we can still defend.”
“You're right, General.” Jhayka smiled tightly, and turned to the communications section, stepping over several paces. “I want an order sent to central command, instructing Marshal d'Kelius to pull the 4th division off the east sector and fall back into the city, and prepare for a counterattack to reestablish a solid connection with the industrial district.”
“At once, Marshal!”
“And get me another try on contact with Major Ewing, understood?”
“Yes ma'am.”
The minutes passed in a tedious nervousness as the morning wore on. There was little news of what had happened, and the speculation began to mount in the murmurings of the staff officers that the reinforcement battalion might have been cut off and destroyed. Finally there was a desperate message from Major Ewing that reached them with an electric shock to the nerves:
“We have cut our way through the enemy encirclement and the battalion is falling back into the city with MAJ Trajan's in support. Request further orders.”
“Just like a solid Marine commander ought...” Jhayka was smiling faintly when she spoke again. “Send: 'Stabilize your lines and prepare both battalions for a counterattack.'”
Then she looked to Arlisa. “I'm going forward to take direct command of the counterattack on this side. Don't worry. I won't get in to close—just the usual parameters for a divisional commander. This combat is to intense these days for my theatrics of the earlier siege to work again.”
“Best of luck to you, Marshal.”
Jhayka flexed her ears in a vague way, and didn't say a thing further, thinking the gesture sufficient as she headed out. Arlisa was left to the task of preparing the counterattack, which she was quite capable of doing.
As for the efforts of the enemy, however, the Warleader Erqui was, having cut off the industrial district from the city, now exploiting it to his advantage. He held a strip between 2.5km and 3km wide between the industrial districts and the south bank section of the city of Kalunda proper. This he was now immediately fortifying, and placing strong battalions of mortars in the centre along the rubble of the wall, to prepare for the counterattacks he expected.
For a moment, while the Kalundan forces recovered and troops were shifted to prepare for the counterattack, the field of battle was largely silent as the Warleader rushed his forces in an effort to concentrate enough and fortify enough that they could hold what they had gained. He had become in his own way a thoroughly modern general; while the celebrating was left to Tarl Ikmen and the Emir at the encirclement, he just worked vigorously to exploit the breakthrough and keep the Kalundan defenders on the defensive.
His most important aid in this effort, however, was the fact that the modern battalions had seen the loss of some of their anti-missile/anti-bomb defences in the hasty retirement, which meant that close air suppport for defending against an enemy counterattack would be much easier to accomplish than it had been for the attack itself. Getting the forward air observers into position and preparing his troops for very close aerial operations by the Gileans to support them was just as important to his effort as seeing that his troops were strongly posted.
For Tarl Ikmen, though, it was all a moment of celebration. His Ar division, despite the casualties, had essentially won the battle, perhaps the whole siege, for the allied army and for the Norman Empire in general. In barbaric repose he retired to celebrate the great victory before the battle was even truly won.
It wasn't until the early afternoon that the Kalundans had moved the forces they needed into position for a general counterattack from both directions. The coordination took longer. It was about 1500 hours and they simply couldn't delay any longer. They had to attack, lest the enemy consolidate their gains to such a point they could not be dislodged. Jhayka had an improvised divisional headquarters to coordinate her force, the brigade and regiment to be used for the assault, the reserve battalion of the 14th brigade which had been smashed in the attack of the Ar Division reprising its old role in addition to them, and a few other light units.
At 1510 hours she gave the order for the attack to proceed on both sides of the gap. She immediately sent her own forces forward, operating her headquarters from a concrete building, a machine shop attached to a repair facility for the city's industrial railroad, very close to the fighting but out of direct line of sight with the enemy. Sarina's attack was reasonably well-coordinated, beginning only six minutes later.
Initially, the strong thrusts forced the allied defenders back. They held from building to building, steadily being pushed toward the open ground. For an hour the stiff attack pressed on forward in this manner, getting closer and closer to open ground, until the last line of the buildings was cleared and ahead were the Normans dug in, five hundred meters on either side from the new Kalundan positions, utterly vulnerable. But the allies had their forward air controllers in position, and they were already coolly radioing in positions for the fighter-bombers which had been orbiting well clear of the city.
Even as Ewing and Trajan's battalions went to the fore to spearhead the attack to drive out the allied troops from their positions, they were now closing. They immediately had been given the orders and accelerating and rising to high altitude could not be detected by the primitive air defences of Kalunda, based almost entirely around those two battalions at this point after days of heavy attrition, until much to late to respond to their first attacks. Normally this would not be a problem, but with the air defences of the battalions already reduced, the plunging bombs and cluster munitions of the Gilean fighters quickly turned the cleared ground into a zone of massacre.
A whole division was chewed apart in minutes, though the advanced spearpoint battalions suffered lightly and continued to attack, indeed, all the more vigorously. For the moment the forces under Jhayka's command were untouched, and they forged their way foward. Yet another wave of bombers came in, and dropping their bombs ahead of Ewing and Trajan's battalions laid a pattern of heavy mines with them. The Habsburg Major saw them come in and ordered a halt to his own advance; their power armoured suits were not strong enough to defend against such mines, designed specifically against them, and with most of their artillery lost they had no way to easily clear the field.
Which meant that it would have to be done by bangalore torpedoes, slowly. Joachim Ewing was not easily given to abandoning a mission, and so halting the advance of his companies and issuing orders the same to Trajan, the two battalions began to worm their way forward, deployed support weapons keeping the heads of the allies down as they forced their way toward their lines, blasting paths through the aircraft-deployed minefield with the bangalore torpedoes.
In the meantime, however, the attacking force behind them was under sustained assault from the air, and had essentially halted. Sarina had found that the division had already taken 30% casualties, at least, and the number was rising continuously under the aerial assault. Whole regiments had effectively ceased to exist when the aircraft concentrated on them. But she kept the force in place because the advanced battalions still had a chance of breaking through.
Jhayka's force was moving swiftly forward, but then the Gilean Air Force proved the master of the situation again for that attack. They deployed aerial mines behind the advancing troops, creating a treacherous and tangled ground with little possibility of retreat, before returning to focus on the troops of Sarina's command. Jhayka, standing surrounded by bare and dank concrete walls and with her maps laid out on silent machine-tools, had no choice but to order the forces forward. They now had to conquer or die, and the whole attack was rapidly turning into a disaster.
Erqui had strongly posted not just mortars but also all sorts of heavy support weapons on the rubble line of the wall, and these had the power at the range that the advanced battalions were getting to so that they might occasionally actually penetrate the armour of the unlucky, and more attackers were killed by lucky direct RPG hits on their powered armour. Several more were lost to the air raids, though their casualties so far were still light.
Yet with the difficulty in getting ammunition to Jhayka's soldiers through the minefield, they were hung up and couldn't press their own assault while their supplies of bullets dwindled. By 1800 hours the attack had utterly stalled, though Jhayka's troops had gotten close enough to the Norman lines to throw grenades into their trenches, yet then Erqui unleashed his counterattack. Cold-heartedly sending two regiments out onto each flank of the advanced battalions, toward the north, toward the city, these regiments cleared a path for a second regiment trailing each through the minefield their own forces had laid, taking hundreds of casualties to allow the attack to proceed so swiftly that Ewing and Trajan could not meet it.
They were forced to retreat to avoid encirclement, and with their retreat, the Gilean Air Force could turn its attention to Jhayka's troops. They were, quite simply, massacred out in the open, and she could only watch in bitter horror as the attack collapsed and thousands were lost, unable to escape. Virtually silent, she issued no orders, forcing herself simply to listen to every report of the massacre, until at last the enemy had not only finished off her attack, but were preparing for a counterattack. The Gilean fighter-bombers dropped concussive bombs along their own minefield to clear it handily, and then substantial elements of the Stirlin forces and the whole of the Ar division, still able to fight despite the vicious casualties it had taken earlier in the day, surged into the industrial district with the forces that would have opposed them having been destroyed from the air.
And the fighter-bombers moved on to other targets, systematically starting to take apart the Kalundan defences in the factory district with smart bombs. Quickly the situation spiraled, so that a brigade with only the strength of a regiment was the only force fighting against a strong division's worth of troops pushing against them. “Put the reserve battalion forward,” Jhayka ordered at last. “And instruct Arlisa to fall back into her redoubt. The air force will not be able to do so much damage to us there, and we can get some anti-air back up that can cover such a concentrated area. Instruct her to inform the Marshal D'Kelius that she ought to shift such forces as she can to try and cover the rest of the south bank again...”
The messages were dispatched, and Jhayka looked around, and made up her mind. “I'm going forward with the reserves to conduct the defence.” Before those around her could protest, she peremptorily strode swiftly toward the door, and started outside...
And at that moment a smart bomb cut through the concrete walls of the machine shop and exploded. Everyone was killed or mortally wounded outright inside. Jhayka had gotten several paces beyond the building and turned to the left to head toward the front when the blast took place. As the building blew up she was showered with concrete fragments. One tore through her left ear, not removing it but creating a hole right down the centre, and lower; all of her left side struck by countless fragments which riddled the flash. The second finger of six on her left hand was struck off at the first joint. A heavy fragment tore deep into the buttox leaving a heavy trail behind... And the largest swept low along the ground, and struck off her left leg just below the knee. She fell, wordlessly, crippled and cut through in a sudden moment, and bleeding profusely from the shattered stump, she lay dying on the ground.
DAY 45,
Kalunda.
Jhayka itl dhin Intuit's death or survival was not decided on the field of battle that summer day on Gilead. Her wounds by human standards were arguably lethal. Her whole left side was riddled through with flecks of rock, and though she might have well survived that, with her leg gone she was hemhorraging blood horrifically fast. Damage from her ear to the base of a nonexistant toe had perforated a whole side of her body. Yet for all that, her life or death had been settled a million years before, instead, not by God but by the mere processes of evolution.
Taloran females had not evolved in the same way as human females; their hips had not gotten broader to accomadate their larger brains as they clawed their way toward sentience. They instead were guided toward a twofold approach to successful childbearing. First of all, brain development was pushed back in their children, while early functioning, common in many mammals and mammal-like creatures, was retained. The head still got somewhat larger, however—and Talorans had narrow hips in comparison mammalian females in general, let alone humans.
By evolutionary standards, the solution was a brutal one, blunt, unsophisticated, and inelegant. Millions of years of proto-Talorans had selected toward an obvious and simple way to deal with the problem: Simply endure the suffering of an extended and exquisitely painful childbirth more easily. Taloran females stopped going into shock. Hypoperfusion was essentially almost impossible to induce in them; as a human doctor studying Taloran physiology remarked, “It's possible, but what's the point when they've already been reduced to the size and consistency of a hamburger?”
Where a human would have gone into shock, and therefore expired, either of the state of shock itself or of bloodloss from the open wounds, Jhayka was left with the tremendous and horrible experience of being aware through the entire process. She clawed herself up, surrounded by rubble, and feeling the most intense pain from her buttocks first, tore strips from the light silk of her robe that stretched over her uniform—so preciously easy to tear in a desperate emergency like this—and began to essentially stuff the hole in herself to stem the blood loss.
It wasn't until she tried to get up after that, silent with the pain, unable to bring herself to speak, but very much aware, that she released her left leg was no longer there, by dint of collapsing down onto it as she tried to get up, in a pool of her own blood. The desperation of the wound's severity was obvious. There was plenty of her cape left, however, and in combination with her belt she was able to fashion a tourniquet just below her knee and cover it in silk besides. During that, in turn, she discovered the missing finger, and dealt with it as well.
Stubbornly holding the family sword in hand, she began to painfully, pitifully crawl her way to the rear, her mind functioning in simple terms, desperate with the pain, as she dragged herself. All the while the aerial attacks were continuing around her, and the Norman offensive was pushing hard against the area right behind her. Somehow, through it all, she had managed to get fifty meters to the rear before she collapsed unconscious, even her physiology unable to prevent it at that point.
Captain Askan Carhill had fought throughout the battle, first seeing action on the third day of the siege and then fighting continuously since, the only lulls being the lulls on the whole front. He had gone from a company commander to a battalion commander over the course of the action, and now he was leading his battalion in a desperate retreat from contact with the enemy as all Kalundan forces in the area collapsed under the hammer-blows that they had received and the constant aerial attacks.
His battalion was being devastated from the air and from the heavy pursuit of the Norman 'Ar' Division, but despite all of this suffering he had kept them organized and in retreat, at first toward the redoubt... But then they had come in contact with advancing Stirlin troops. Their line of retreat was cut off. In desperation they headed to the west, sometimes linking up with other units just to have their numbers whittled down even more by the endless air attacks.
Night was falling, and tracers spitting into the air showed them that the quay redoubt was holding out well. Yet there would be no shelter for them at that place. They could not get to it. Trying to avoid much larger enemy units the battalion backtracked slightly, and at 2100 hours was able to strike a surprise blow against the support formations of a Stirlin brigade, capturing the brigade commander in the chaos as they appeared out of the shattered forest of industrial plants and cut through the headquarters of the brigade.
Askan and his second in command, Captain Underwood, rushed forward to personally interrogate the captured Stirlin Brigadier, for hope that the information they could gain from her would prove useful in trying to find a route on which their battalion could retreat. It was on arrival that the two men were shocked. Next to the brigadier in her vicious leather-style riding uniform was a man with red cross patches in the uniform of the Gilean regular army—one of the medics sent along with the forward air controllers. He was bent down over a prostrate form.
And on that, the two officers gazed with shock. It was the Princess Jhayka. The worst sort of rumours had spread about her fate in the hours after the defence had collapsed, and they had proved out to be entirely true, as they saw her wretched condition, clearly alive by the narrowest of margins. Had it not been for the sheerest accident of the enemy's dispositions, and our own blind misfortune, she would have been made a prisoner..
But there was no time to think about that. “Can she be moved?” Askan queried sharply of the medic.
“No. She's much to serious and on the verge of death. If you want her to live she'll have to stay here.” The medic answered rather snappily... And began to choke. To choke from the work of the virtually translucent, pallid hand of Jhayka's which had lanced up to grip into his throat.
“He's lying. They were... Just about to move me.” She rasped out brokenly. “Attack the rear of their brigade at once. It's spread out, and the tempo of air operations is decreasing... Whilst they rearm.”
Both the Gilean medic and the Stirlin officer seemed quite surprised that she had been able to process and remember all that had gone on. Askan Carhill had his information, however. A single order crackled over the radio and his battalion pushed forward into the rear of the unprepared and headless Stirlin brigade.
“What then, Marshal?” Their guns were drawn on the medic and the Stirlin brigadier.
“Southwest as soon as you clear them, until you reach water. Then find the strongest point you can and fortify it with all the men you have. Hold there until you... We... Are relieved.” Her eyes fluttered closed again at the exertion even that had required.
“Well, we have what we need. Get rid of the prisoners, except the Gilean medic. Bind him and take him with us. I don't trust him after he lied about Her Highnesses' condition...”
“The Brigadier, too?”
“No!” Jhayka spoke again, unable to keep her eyes open but still hearing from her good ear; the other one was crumpled and bloody. “She gave me back my sword. Let her live. She'll come with us and you'll protect her no matter what. She had a choice to mistreat me and she chose honour. Show it back to her.”
“Of course, Marshal.” The bound medic and Brigadier were placed on litters just like the wounded Jhayka, while the rest of the staff company of the brigade was, to put it brutally clear, executed on the spot. They proceeded forward, then, following their battalion on a very bloody but successful attack into the rear of the Stirlin brigade, routing it.
And then, the supreme commander of the siege jostling painfully on a litter, they moved to the southwest, and marched, and marched, sometimes under air attack, sometimes clashing with Norman patrols, their numbers steadily whittling down all the time. The men simply dropped away to their deaths, or to try and escape in small pockets when they got lost from the main body, and the force was so severely depleted that even after the troops which had stumbled into it themselves were accounted, there were only 568 effectives in the ranks when they began to stumble through the wreckage of a bombed-out factory and saw before them iron tracks, and a plunge down to the water, lit by the moons and lit also by the flash of tracers and the explosion of bombs over the quay.
They were at the very mouth of the northern of the two service canals, and just across from them was the secure end of the quay, opposite from the heavy fighting around the warehouse at the front, which was now garrisoned by three thousand men who were holding off in that strongly fortified position the better part of a Stirlin division which had finally concentrated against them despite the chaos Askan had caused with his mad charge of only a few hours before.
It was midnight. In front of them there was a warehouse. Built on half an acre of land it was 90ft high, 250ft wide, and 180 feet long, with huge ferrocrete highly reinforced walls a meter thick, the substance must stronger than the concrete used in most of the construction in the city which had already held up well. It also appeared basically abandoned. The company pushed toward it.
Inside they found seventeen Kalundan workers who had tried along with those sent back to escape from the industrial district earlier, but had failed, all women from one of the textile factories. That left them with 585 defenders, two prisoners, and fourty-four wounded. They were quickly able to prepare strong defences around the warehouse, but there was no means to contact the quay in their possession.
Not only that, but the Kalundan medics had made it very clear that Jhayka had lost so much blood that she would die in fairly short order. Carhill resolved to do something about it; yet there seemed nothing that could be done. Only the effort of one of the textile girls saved the situation, and the Marshal.
She approached, flushing brightly, and clearly highly embarassed. “Ah, Captain, Sir...”
“Yes?”
“I have a flag. It was one of the ones we made before we were sent to arms, but which hadn't been distributed yet.. And, well, err, when we went to retreat I wrapped it around myself so I could stay warm, and I know it was wrong to do but it gets so cold down by the river and....”
Askan laughed. “My dear, the fates have given us a great benefit in this. Don't apologize. But give it to me. You have saved the Marshal's life.”
The girl, wide-eyed, took off enough of her clothes to unwrap the flag from her body, which took many strokes, for it was wound tightly, and immediately Askan looked around as she did so. “I need a volunteer to raise the flag on the building!”
“Sir!” A sergeant came forward: “Let me lead my whole section to do it, Sir.”
“Of course. Get to it, Eduard.”
“Sir!” The Sergeant, Eduard Bouras, and his volunteered file set off at once with the flag. There was no flag-pole. They ended up having to tie the very large banner, four meters long in its rectangular form, to a long length of railroad track, which had to be manhandled up the stairs by means of a pulley and then jammed into the already broken elevator mechanism to keep it erect. But they succeeded, and succeeded tremendously.
Arlisa had thought the Marshal was dead; she had reported it to Julio and Sarina, who had called Major Ewing back to serve as her Chief of Staff in a bout of uncertainty. Nobody had told Danielle yet; only Ilavna could do that, Julio thought, and Ilavna was not yet ready to do it.
Though Arlisa's forces had retired to their redoubt successfully, the rest of the industrial district was occupied, and the al-Farani reserves on the south bank had been used to seize not less than one third of the south bank of the city, all of it to the east except for a few blocks near the waterfront where reserve troops from the north bank had crossed the bridges in time to just barely defend the areas which still had civilians in them, with the support of the guns of Danielle's riverboats, which under the sustained air attacks of the past two days had already suffered half their numbers sunk or crippled.
The whole battle seemed like it was surely going to be lost. But then Arlisa saw it, and all of those fighting on the quay saw it. Through the bursting bombs and the green glow of the tracers, backlit by uncontrolled fires in the industrial district, the flag of the city of Kalunda flew proudly on the Sackon Industries Warehouse. Part of the rest of the industrial district was holding out after all.
Lacking any regular means of communication, Arlisa's staff was finally able to use a signal lamp to get the attention of the defenders of the Sackon warehouse. Initially they had no way to respond, but then hit on using a powerful flashlight and a concave mirror which had been found in storage, and in this fashion managed to get a beam back across. the news was electric:
WE HOLD. HAVE 1 STIRLIN BRG PRISONER. PRNCS JHAYKA WITH US WOUNDED. SEND TALORAN BLOOD.
The message reached Julio's headquarters about five minutes later, where Sarina read it with it Ewing, and a sigh of relief swept through the headquarters. Julio seemed to have a great weight relieved from his shoulders, but then he posed the obvious question: “how can we ever get any supplies through the blockade? If we try boats on the river they'll be blasted to pieces from the continuous air attack.”
“I can do it, Your Majesty.”
Everyone turned around and saw Ilavna standing there, incredibly grave. “I know the severity of her condition.” A hand was held up. “Please, do not ask how. Do not ask right now. But I have in my medical kit what I need, and I will go help her myself. I can take only enough to stabilize her for perhaps a day or so; you will need to find some way to rescue her, to bring her to the hospital in the city by then. But if I go now I will be able to reach her in time to give her twenty-four hours more life.”
“How will get through the city, girl? You will have to cross through two sets of enemy lines! It is utter madness...”
“I will walk through them.”
“How!?”
“They will not see me, Your Majesty.”
And she began to walk forward... And began to waver and become indistinct, as though she were skipping along the edges of the mind. A low murmur of shock ran through the war-room. She refocused, and turned to Julio with a tight smile while in the background Ewing hissed: “a psyker, of course,” but Ilavna ignored this.
“In the dark? And I wearing things more able to fit into what the mind naturally expects to see in a place? No. They will not know that I am there.”
“Then go as fast as you can for the sake of your liege,” Julio answered, for the first time in the whole siege feeling genuinely unnerved even as he was also relieved.
“I will.” Ilavna looked to Sarina. “Have your sister tell Danielle everything.” She turned, and without further words, left, stopping first to get one of Jhayka's black capes to drape over herself, and with that, the perfect aid to her psychic disguise when in the dark, she headed out, driving out and across the river's bridges, not yet attacked by the allied desire for a quick victory, that they might be seized. And she drove until she reached their own lines in the city... And then, not even reporting to the personnel there, she did as she promised. She vanished, and she walked forward.
She did her duty for the house that her ancestors served. But it would only lend her liege-lady a day's life at the very best, sixteen or twenty hours at worst, and the Gilean Air Force declared that, all things remaining even, that would not be sufficient to save her. The sky above Ilavna was lit with a devil's mix of fire and tracers, arcing light onto the billowing clouds of the deritus of battle, and highlighting the endless progression of shattered buildings. The city was dying around them, and through it, Ilavna walked on, out into no-man's land.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Post written by Marina:
DAY 45/46
Kalunda
Ilavna Lashila was now exercising the powers that she had tested in the city of Ar, for deadly purpose rather than simple practice, or investigation of the crowded caravan souks of that aged city. All she did was telepathically take advantage of a fact of the vision of the eye, that in the brain memory is conserved and so the image received is not updated perfectly. As she walked, in short, she simply made those looking toward her see what they had seen just before she had arrived in their field of vision. She was not actually invisible; and though the same trick worked for certain kinds of computer systems (after all, they equally rely on electronic impulses), simple 'dumb' recording devices could still catch her.
What use were those, however, in this great clash of arms? Men were the focus of these operations, and the pickets for the Norman encampments were the main line they had they against infiltration, along with noisemakers and other such things, which might be harder for Ilavna to avoid. Yet she had more often than not as a young girl been a beater for Jhayka's hunts, before her psychic abilities brought her to the attention of the priesthood, and so the respect of her feudal lady. She knew how to be quiet in a tangle of underbrush, and this was not so very different.
Here and there the allied troops could be seen encamped, fires keeping them warm during the cool and damp nights along the river, even in the summer. In some cases they looked almost moral, just men sitting down for a quick meal and a short sleep in the midst of the war. Indeed, in the ruins of a shattered factory Ilavna was stopped short by the sight of a Norman man playing a fiddle to a dozen men 'round a campfire. For several long and precious minutes she could not bring herself to move, and shuddered convulsively in the Taloran version of sharp weeping, at the sight of the humanity of their enemies.
Why did it come that they have chosen evil, when they are, in the main, so much like those we've stood with? That they're all hell-bound I've no doubt, but why? She knew their certain crimes; there was no real 'why' to it. It was more a question of the whole edifice, how the primitive zone could have grown to be such a festering sore, a boil on an otherwise quaint little confederacy of some noted corruption.
It reminded her of a promise she had made, to a girl in Ar, and it gripped her heart, that she must live to see it through. I cannot see my promise fail; I must return to Ar and save Rodaka from this madness. Yet without Her Highness what shall I do? I do not have the wealth to educate a girl. I must save Her Highness for this reason as well; two futures ride on me now. She pressed on.
Not all of the encampments were given to a facade of decency. Screams attracted her attention up ahead, and here the pacific feelings which the sight of the fiddle had engendered in her were melted away by a hideous sight, of a girl, freshly captured, being passed around and brutally raped. Ilavna remained silent for a moment, unable to formulate a response. I cannot rescue her; I can't shield another like myself! But she had to act anyway, and she did.
She was armed, of course, and the little REQ automatic carbine was snatched up indignant in her hands. Not thinking of the importance of her mission, just of the necessity to do right here, she laid down into the Stirlins around the camp-fire a hail of gunfire. Eight men fell before they could react with thundercracks of death from that railgun assault rifle, but the spell was broken and she was quite visible. Her gun fixed on the one man who had been raping the girl only a moment before.
And he had a knife on the girl's throat, even as many other guns were pointed at Ilavna. It was only then that the fear gripped her that her righteous anger might have destroyed her mission to save her liege, and for a long moment the silence between the two sides was held, while other men from other detachments rushed to the area at the sound of the gunfire.
“Give yourself up, alien, or I'll slit her throat!” The nude man with the knife snapped harshly.
Ilavna swallowed dryly, and thought of the one thing that might save her, and the girl besides. Something she had, necessarily, been unable to practice. But something nonetheless taught to a psychic of her power within her order of the church, a thing forbidden to those who held the power but did not enter the church orders. She dropped her carbine.
The Stirlins surged forward at once to take her prisoner, even as the man released the girl who breathed a desperate sigh. But their unarmed prisoner was anything but. She fell back easily on her feet and thrust arm out, right arm curled back, and shouted. It was a primal shout, weird and resonant, with a terrible fervour to it, of a word unspeakable, unknowable by the real mind.
The Sergeant of the little group tumbled over, dying, blood running from his nose and ears. Ilavna had drawn into the deepest resources of her powers, and commanded his body with a 'killing word', though it didn't truly explain the concept, to suffer a massive stroke within the brain. The Stirlins stopped short of her, raising their guns back up but unwilling to fire, a mortal terror having spread through the group at this display of what to them was the supernatural.
“Take your lives and flee....” Ilavna's voice ghosted on the wind to them, and they did what she told them to do. They fled, and she picked up the carbine and moved forward to see that the girl was able to flee as well.
“You must go.”
“Let me stay with you,” she blubbered, musting herself, sobbing through the pain and indignity and clearly badly hurt from the experience.
“I cannot let you. Run while you still can.” And with that, unable to bear the sight anymore and having done all that she could, Ilavna vanished again into the night which alone offered her succor.
It took another hour to reach the warehouse. The Sackon warehouse was already surrounded by the enemy, the Ar division preparing to attack, and had been struck several times by aerial bombs, though the ferrocrete held up much better to these, and they hadn't collapsed any of the building yet. Its defenders were standing in good stead, the main issues being food and ammunition which would have to be got to them, and the evacuation of the wounded which overwhelmed a battalion aide station.
Well, at least they would have a doctor now, even if it was merely a medical student, and an alien one at that. Yet her first task was Jhayka; and her task for the moment, above all others, was simply to pass through the lines of Ar. None could see her, but the random fire forced her down, crawling painfully forward and often halting, in her effort to reach the safety of the fortificiations inside that the Kalundan troops had carefully, haltingly managed to put together.
When she stumbled over the parapet and allowed herself to be seen, the immediate focus of a dozen guns onto her was replaced by gasps of surprise and impossible shock, the guns hastily shifted away. No-one could believe that the feat had been accomplished, and she was led to the Princess' side in the presence of those awed by her.
But that was a meeting which brought her short, too. The shattered and tattered body—could that really be the strong and brave exemplar of nobility that she had thought so highly of? Tentatively, lightly, she spoke the first words: “Your Highness, I presume...?”
A bark, pained and cut off right away, of laughter. “If only you knew the significance of such a thing to say. Thank you, Ilavna. I will make your mother a Baroness for this.” So it was her, and in the same fine old form at that.
Just physically weak, and kept awake by the brutality of those around her for her own survival, for if she drifted off into unconsciousness now she might well die. Ilavna had time only for a modest, “I think she would refuse,” before moving to set up the needle to the first of her bags of blood collected from the other Talorans in the city. The wounds had all been tenderly bandaged, and of course there was no danger of infection possible, with no bacteria which could have an effect on the Taloran physiology present in the environment, or else the Princess would probably be doomed to die here without intensive treatment from that fact alone.
Yet even with the blood that was now being pumped into Jhayka's body, almost bloodless in terms of her ability to survive, it would not keep her alive forever. Though Talorans were resilient to shock they were actually more vulnerable to hypoxia, a fact which had long restricted Talorans from alpining and other such high-altitude excursions without the benefit of supplementary oxygen. It also meant, however, that in those hours when her inability to go into shock had saved her, the lack of oxygen getting to her flesh had been compounded.
The brain was the last thing to go, but by the time Ilavna had arrived, she had averted that, and with it death, by minutes at most, even though the medical corps had placed a full-oxygen mask on Jhayka's face to try and counteract the lack of blood by increasing the richness of the oxygen which did get thorugh. Though the infusion of blood, and with it, a return to normal blood flow, would be wonderful, the Princess had many wounds which had to be sealed, and more to the point, the hypoxia had left many of her organs simply in danger of failing.
Ilavna could keep her alive for a while, and did so admirably through the night and into the morning while the Ar division began the first of its assaults on the warehouse. Jhayka, stabilized, had been able to slip into unconsciousness at last. The problem at hand was not going to go away. She had a day, at least, perhaps longer. From a distance, Ilavna's sense of the situation had been worse earlier.
But she had to be hooked up to modern medical equipment, to take the strain of keeping her body alive off of her organs long enough for drugs and in some cases microsurgery to repair them enough and aide them in their own healing processes that they could resume the task of keeping her alive. And that meant the bunkers of the city. Nothing else would suffice in the task.
With so many others seriously wounded in the warehouse, and the whole position running low on food and ammunition, the obvious choice was also a grim one. The remainder of the river squadron had to run a mission there to deliver food and ammunition, and take away all the critically wounded to safety in the city. And they would have to do it under sustained air attack, to aide a position surrounded by the better part of a division trying to overrun it, while the whole south bank of the city was steadily being overrun by the enemy and no solid lines of defence as on the north bank could halt their progress toward the river.
DAY 46,
N. of East Port.
Major Tessa Stuart, Royal Marines, was the effective commander of a force of two thousand men that General Arshon had sent north of East Port when the agreement on the withdraw had been struck. Consisting of about a thousand British subjects, all volunteers, two hundred and fifty Slavian marines in power armour under the command of Monseiur Gottrop, and around eight hundred citizens of the northern areas of East Port who supported intervention and opposed Covington, they had dispersed four dozen kilometers north of the city, out of the rank that the Cartagenean Corps bothered to patrol with its commander's ambivalent feelings about the military prospects of the Confederacy.
It was a pleasant morning in this area just inside the primitive zone, which had so far been untouched by war save perhaps for the distant roving of a few patrols. The villagers in the area brought them food; their presence was only a semi-secret one, with the Cartagenean Corps not paying it much heed at the moment.
The sun, rising up into the sky, was casting a growing heat onto the whole of the scene, and it was a good one. It scarcely seemed worse than being in the midst of an exercise, though Tessa knew that this eager but woefully unprepared men would soon have a test that she did not think they would appreciate at all, one of live fire from an enemy's guns directed against them. It made the hearty repaste of a proper country breakfast something to be quickly forgotten for all the good it had done her to enjoy it slowly.
Her field headquarters was a simple camoflauged tent, but inside of it was a powerful receiver which could, albeit with painful slowness, copy over the coded transmissions sent from Arshon's headquarters where she received the information herself on higher-powered reception sets from the international forces. Now, in the days of quiet that had followed since being forced to abandon the city, it was certainly the most tense occasion yet.
It was also the best.
Slowly the message was printed out, displayed line-by-line while the British decoding equipment went through it on the sequence, showing what they needed to know about the upcoming events.
Glorious news was revealed on that simple printout. The fleet was coming, and coming soon. They were expected to be in the Gilean system twelve hours from the transmission of the message—which had been at 1000 hours. They were now receiving it and reading it at 1030 hours after the transmission delays and relay delays from Arshon's headquarters. Eleven and a half hours, and we'll be in regular communication again with all the forces in the primitive zone, and finally able to find out the status of Kalunda—and of Sara.
The rest of the message, though, had finished printing out, and Tessa took the second sheet and read that as well. It contained her orders:
You are to prepare a landing site north of East Port, Stop. Site should be sufficient for seven heavy brigades, Stop. All preparations must be complete in T-57 hours, Stop. You must be able to guide in the transports to the appropriate landing zones, Stop. Landings will commence in T-60 hours, Stop. On Landings, your units will be attached to those of the landing force per the orders of the commander LTGEN RISIM, Stop.
That was that. Now 56 and a half hours, and counting, to prepare the landing sites. 59 and a half hours until the landings themselves. Assuming all goes well. That would be discovered soon enough, in less than half a day when the fleet finally arrived. But no more waiting, at least; now they had work to get busy on, preparing for the landing of around 56,000 troops and thousands of heavy combat vehicles.
DAY 45/46
Kalunda
Ilavna Lashila was now exercising the powers that she had tested in the city of Ar, for deadly purpose rather than simple practice, or investigation of the crowded caravan souks of that aged city. All she did was telepathically take advantage of a fact of the vision of the eye, that in the brain memory is conserved and so the image received is not updated perfectly. As she walked, in short, she simply made those looking toward her see what they had seen just before she had arrived in their field of vision. She was not actually invisible; and though the same trick worked for certain kinds of computer systems (after all, they equally rely on electronic impulses), simple 'dumb' recording devices could still catch her.
What use were those, however, in this great clash of arms? Men were the focus of these operations, and the pickets for the Norman encampments were the main line they had they against infiltration, along with noisemakers and other such things, which might be harder for Ilavna to avoid. Yet she had more often than not as a young girl been a beater for Jhayka's hunts, before her psychic abilities brought her to the attention of the priesthood, and so the respect of her feudal lady. She knew how to be quiet in a tangle of underbrush, and this was not so very different.
Here and there the allied troops could be seen encamped, fires keeping them warm during the cool and damp nights along the river, even in the summer. In some cases they looked almost moral, just men sitting down for a quick meal and a short sleep in the midst of the war. Indeed, in the ruins of a shattered factory Ilavna was stopped short by the sight of a Norman man playing a fiddle to a dozen men 'round a campfire. For several long and precious minutes she could not bring herself to move, and shuddered convulsively in the Taloran version of sharp weeping, at the sight of the humanity of their enemies.
Why did it come that they have chosen evil, when they are, in the main, so much like those we've stood with? That they're all hell-bound I've no doubt, but why? She knew their certain crimes; there was no real 'why' to it. It was more a question of the whole edifice, how the primitive zone could have grown to be such a festering sore, a boil on an otherwise quaint little confederacy of some noted corruption.
It reminded her of a promise she had made, to a girl in Ar, and it gripped her heart, that she must live to see it through. I cannot see my promise fail; I must return to Ar and save Rodaka from this madness. Yet without Her Highness what shall I do? I do not have the wealth to educate a girl. I must save Her Highness for this reason as well; two futures ride on me now. She pressed on.
Not all of the encampments were given to a facade of decency. Screams attracted her attention up ahead, and here the pacific feelings which the sight of the fiddle had engendered in her were melted away by a hideous sight, of a girl, freshly captured, being passed around and brutally raped. Ilavna remained silent for a moment, unable to formulate a response. I cannot rescue her; I can't shield another like myself! But she had to act anyway, and she did.
She was armed, of course, and the little REQ automatic carbine was snatched up indignant in her hands. Not thinking of the importance of her mission, just of the necessity to do right here, she laid down into the Stirlins around the camp-fire a hail of gunfire. Eight men fell before they could react with thundercracks of death from that railgun assault rifle, but the spell was broken and she was quite visible. Her gun fixed on the one man who had been raping the girl only a moment before.
And he had a knife on the girl's throat, even as many other guns were pointed at Ilavna. It was only then that the fear gripped her that her righteous anger might have destroyed her mission to save her liege, and for a long moment the silence between the two sides was held, while other men from other detachments rushed to the area at the sound of the gunfire.
“Give yourself up, alien, or I'll slit her throat!” The nude man with the knife snapped harshly.
Ilavna swallowed dryly, and thought of the one thing that might save her, and the girl besides. Something she had, necessarily, been unable to practice. But something nonetheless taught to a psychic of her power within her order of the church, a thing forbidden to those who held the power but did not enter the church orders. She dropped her carbine.
The Stirlins surged forward at once to take her prisoner, even as the man released the girl who breathed a desperate sigh. But their unarmed prisoner was anything but. She fell back easily on her feet and thrust arm out, right arm curled back, and shouted. It was a primal shout, weird and resonant, with a terrible fervour to it, of a word unspeakable, unknowable by the real mind.
The Sergeant of the little group tumbled over, dying, blood running from his nose and ears. Ilavna had drawn into the deepest resources of her powers, and commanded his body with a 'killing word', though it didn't truly explain the concept, to suffer a massive stroke within the brain. The Stirlins stopped short of her, raising their guns back up but unwilling to fire, a mortal terror having spread through the group at this display of what to them was the supernatural.
“Take your lives and flee....” Ilavna's voice ghosted on the wind to them, and they did what she told them to do. They fled, and she picked up the carbine and moved forward to see that the girl was able to flee as well.
“You must go.”
“Let me stay with you,” she blubbered, musting herself, sobbing through the pain and indignity and clearly badly hurt from the experience.
“I cannot let you. Run while you still can.” And with that, unable to bear the sight anymore and having done all that she could, Ilavna vanished again into the night which alone offered her succor.
It took another hour to reach the warehouse. The Sackon warehouse was already surrounded by the enemy, the Ar division preparing to attack, and had been struck several times by aerial bombs, though the ferrocrete held up much better to these, and they hadn't collapsed any of the building yet. Its defenders were standing in good stead, the main issues being food and ammunition which would have to be got to them, and the evacuation of the wounded which overwhelmed a battalion aide station.
Well, at least they would have a doctor now, even if it was merely a medical student, and an alien one at that. Yet her first task was Jhayka; and her task for the moment, above all others, was simply to pass through the lines of Ar. None could see her, but the random fire forced her down, crawling painfully forward and often halting, in her effort to reach the safety of the fortificiations inside that the Kalundan troops had carefully, haltingly managed to put together.
When she stumbled over the parapet and allowed herself to be seen, the immediate focus of a dozen guns onto her was replaced by gasps of surprise and impossible shock, the guns hastily shifted away. No-one could believe that the feat had been accomplished, and she was led to the Princess' side in the presence of those awed by her.
But that was a meeting which brought her short, too. The shattered and tattered body—could that really be the strong and brave exemplar of nobility that she had thought so highly of? Tentatively, lightly, she spoke the first words: “Your Highness, I presume...?”
A bark, pained and cut off right away, of laughter. “If only you knew the significance of such a thing to say. Thank you, Ilavna. I will make your mother a Baroness for this.” So it was her, and in the same fine old form at that.
Just physically weak, and kept awake by the brutality of those around her for her own survival, for if she drifted off into unconsciousness now she might well die. Ilavna had time only for a modest, “I think she would refuse,” before moving to set up the needle to the first of her bags of blood collected from the other Talorans in the city. The wounds had all been tenderly bandaged, and of course there was no danger of infection possible, with no bacteria which could have an effect on the Taloran physiology present in the environment, or else the Princess would probably be doomed to die here without intensive treatment from that fact alone.
Yet even with the blood that was now being pumped into Jhayka's body, almost bloodless in terms of her ability to survive, it would not keep her alive forever. Though Talorans were resilient to shock they were actually more vulnerable to hypoxia, a fact which had long restricted Talorans from alpining and other such high-altitude excursions without the benefit of supplementary oxygen. It also meant, however, that in those hours when her inability to go into shock had saved her, the lack of oxygen getting to her flesh had been compounded.
The brain was the last thing to go, but by the time Ilavna had arrived, she had averted that, and with it death, by minutes at most, even though the medical corps had placed a full-oxygen mask on Jhayka's face to try and counteract the lack of blood by increasing the richness of the oxygen which did get thorugh. Though the infusion of blood, and with it, a return to normal blood flow, would be wonderful, the Princess had many wounds which had to be sealed, and more to the point, the hypoxia had left many of her organs simply in danger of failing.
Ilavna could keep her alive for a while, and did so admirably through the night and into the morning while the Ar division began the first of its assaults on the warehouse. Jhayka, stabilized, had been able to slip into unconsciousness at last. The problem at hand was not going to go away. She had a day, at least, perhaps longer. From a distance, Ilavna's sense of the situation had been worse earlier.
But she had to be hooked up to modern medical equipment, to take the strain of keeping her body alive off of her organs long enough for drugs and in some cases microsurgery to repair them enough and aide them in their own healing processes that they could resume the task of keeping her alive. And that meant the bunkers of the city. Nothing else would suffice in the task.
With so many others seriously wounded in the warehouse, and the whole position running low on food and ammunition, the obvious choice was also a grim one. The remainder of the river squadron had to run a mission there to deliver food and ammunition, and take away all the critically wounded to safety in the city. And they would have to do it under sustained air attack, to aide a position surrounded by the better part of a division trying to overrun it, while the whole south bank of the city was steadily being overrun by the enemy and no solid lines of defence as on the north bank could halt their progress toward the river.
DAY 46,
N. of East Port.
Major Tessa Stuart, Royal Marines, was the effective commander of a force of two thousand men that General Arshon had sent north of East Port when the agreement on the withdraw had been struck. Consisting of about a thousand British subjects, all volunteers, two hundred and fifty Slavian marines in power armour under the command of Monseiur Gottrop, and around eight hundred citizens of the northern areas of East Port who supported intervention and opposed Covington, they had dispersed four dozen kilometers north of the city, out of the rank that the Cartagenean Corps bothered to patrol with its commander's ambivalent feelings about the military prospects of the Confederacy.
It was a pleasant morning in this area just inside the primitive zone, which had so far been untouched by war save perhaps for the distant roving of a few patrols. The villagers in the area brought them food; their presence was only a semi-secret one, with the Cartagenean Corps not paying it much heed at the moment.
The sun, rising up into the sky, was casting a growing heat onto the whole of the scene, and it was a good one. It scarcely seemed worse than being in the midst of an exercise, though Tessa knew that this eager but woefully unprepared men would soon have a test that she did not think they would appreciate at all, one of live fire from an enemy's guns directed against them. It made the hearty repaste of a proper country breakfast something to be quickly forgotten for all the good it had done her to enjoy it slowly.
Her field headquarters was a simple camoflauged tent, but inside of it was a powerful receiver which could, albeit with painful slowness, copy over the coded transmissions sent from Arshon's headquarters where she received the information herself on higher-powered reception sets from the international forces. Now, in the days of quiet that had followed since being forced to abandon the city, it was certainly the most tense occasion yet.
It was also the best.
Slowly the message was printed out, displayed line-by-line while the British decoding equipment went through it on the sequence, showing what they needed to know about the upcoming events.
Glorious news was revealed on that simple printout. The fleet was coming, and coming soon. They were expected to be in the Gilean system twelve hours from the transmission of the message—which had been at 1000 hours. They were now receiving it and reading it at 1030 hours after the transmission delays and relay delays from Arshon's headquarters. Eleven and a half hours, and we'll be in regular communication again with all the forces in the primitive zone, and finally able to find out the status of Kalunda—and of Sara.
The rest of the message, though, had finished printing out, and Tessa took the second sheet and read that as well. It contained her orders:
You are to prepare a landing site north of East Port, Stop. Site should be sufficient for seven heavy brigades, Stop. All preparations must be complete in T-57 hours, Stop. You must be able to guide in the transports to the appropriate landing zones, Stop. Landings will commence in T-60 hours, Stop. On Landings, your units will be attached to those of the landing force per the orders of the commander LTGEN RISIM, Stop.
That was that. Now 56 and a half hours, and counting, to prepare the landing sites. 59 and a half hours until the landings themselves. Assuming all goes well. That would be discovered soon enough, in less than half a day when the fleet finally arrived. But no more waiting, at least; now they had work to get busy on, preparing for the landing of around 56,000 troops and thousands of heavy combat vehicles.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Written entirely by me
Thentis, Gilead
DAY FORTY-FIVE
William was at his grandmother's bedside when Sara's eyes opened for the first time in days. The anesthetics in her system had finally worn off, and her wounds were mostly healed from the advanced technology brought with them on the Fabian.
"William," he heard her say in a low voice as she looked around at the bedroom, the one she had claimed from the former governor of Thentis. "William, what day is it?!"
"It's the 23rd of December," William answered her, using their universe's calendar. "You've been out for the past few days healing."
"The MacCullochs, Stanton, where are they?"
William's eyes fell. "They... they didn't make it."
Sara nodded slowly. She looked away from her grandson for a moment and closed her eyes, breathing a prayer. "I was going to be the godmother of their children, when they had them."
"They loved you, Grandmother. They had no regrets, I'm sure of it."
"If only I could say the same." Sara looked back to him, a few tears coming down her eyes, which would likely have been more if she weren't trying to control her reaction in front of William. "Has the army moved?"
"General Dao Zhi is leading them to the rendezvous with the Magestrix Avrila," William answered. "Mei-Li and her squadron remained behind with Major Winston to escort you to them as soon as you are healthy to move, which should be tomorrow by what Doctor Smithfield has said." William swallowed and took his grandmother's hand. "Grandmother, we have a problem though."
"What?"
"The Fabian intercepted civilian communications from Quanzhi. The Gilean government has changed hands. Marcus de la Hoya was assassinated on the 13th and the new leader of Gilead is General Covington, the head of military intelligence. He's ordered the Gilean Air Force to bomb Kalunda in support of the Normans."
11:00
Sara's eyes widened. "He what?1"
"Yes. His press statements have announced that the attacks on Kalunda are due to the presence of the foreign citizens in the defense of the city who, he claims, were agents sent by the foreign powers intervening in Gilead to provoke a crisis. He's called on every world in the Confederacy to rise up against the intervention powers."
"Damned fool." Sara put a hand over her face, resting her head against it. Everything I've done could be for nothing.... "Do we know when the intervention forces will arrive?"
"Not at the moment, Grandmother."
Sara sighed. After a moment she went to get up. "I have to go to the army..."
"You can, Grandmother, tomorrow," William said, putting a hand on her shoulder as if to force her back on the bed. "But you must get some rest now."
Between the stiffness in her body, having been mostly still for far too long, and the shock of learning of the deaths of two of her oldest cohorts and the situation as a whole, Sara lacked the energy to overcome her grandson, and relented to remaining in the bed.
(co-authored section by Marina and I.)
DAY 46
On the Kalunda River.
For the human history of the Alliance, there was little more glorious than what was being attempted now. Water-born rescue had all the hallmarks of fame, stoked by the legacy of Dunkirk. Danielle Verdes had a greater purpose to this operation than the mere daring that it entailed to bring small boats on the river to the relief of a surrounded garrison while under continuous air assault. Her lover was in the Sackon warehouse, and she was going to go save her live.
Amber found Danielle in the command bridge of Liberty, staying in the cramped space and desperately trying to keep her riverboat fleet in the fight after the losses taken in the air strikes, as she spoke with one of the girls of the communications department. At the moment Amber was in a new uniform, that of the commanding Major of the understrength "Naval Infantry Battalion" of the Crimson Guard that had been formed from the crews of lost ships and ships too damaged to be in service for the moment. Amber knew that Dani would probably end up in the same unit, because eventually the airstrikes would destroy her fleet. She just didn't know if Dani had it in her to fight on the land as something more than fire support; a competent hand-to-hand combatant, Dani wasn't a soldier and unlike Amber had never fought on the land or even trained for it.
The girl nodded and left. Above, she would have the message sent by signal flags to the rest of the fleet, a measure taken to limit electronic transmission and avoid the Gilean aerial mines and bombs from hitting them by following their electronic emissions, and as old as the sea itself as a means of commanding ships in action. Dani turned to Amber, acknowledging her with a casual salute. "How many troops do we have loaded on the boats?"
"I have most of the battalion on board now," Amber replied. "But we're just an understrength battalion, a couple companies, we can't break an encirclement."
"No, but with the firepower of the fleet I can punch you a hole big enough for you to slip through and get them out. Now get the troops we have in the area and have them ready to launch some kind of distraction, anything to buy us time and pin the enemy down. We're leaving in just a few minutes."
Amber left to finish the preperations, and Dani took leave from the command bridge a moment later, venturing to the upper deck. Around her was ruin and rubble. Kalunda, once called the Jewel of the East not just for her devotion to civilization but because of her gorgeous neo-Classical Greco-Roman architecture, was now a city of crushed stone and marble, reduced to this not only by the Normans but by the very government that had once vowed to defend Kalunda. Tears flowed down Dani's eyes as she recalled what it was like to stand on the deck of Amber's yacht, what seemed like ages ago, and look out at the beautiful waterfront of the city. It was an expression of emotion she could not avoid at a time already fraught with the emotion of dealing with Jhayka's injuries.
What kind of madness had gripped the leaders of Gilead? They had been the ones to fail and yet they were punishing the victims, as if reducing Kalunda would somehow magically drive away the intervention forces. So what if they succeeded? She and Jhayka and Illavna and even Julio might die, but this would only guarantee the responsible were marched up a gallows or in front of a firing squad, assuming they survived the kind of war that the outside powers could bring upon them in vengeance for siding with barbarians like the Normans. What kind of madness was that?
Maybe the same kind of madness I'd have if I were the one facing obliteration or servitude. Had she not, after all, vowed to die rather than be enslaved? In a way that was precisely what the Gileans were doing; knowing that the outside powers would certainly dismember their Confederacy in some way or another, they had chosen to fight to the death instead of accepting the inevitable. The Clans that Trajan once belonged to had gone the same route, with similar consequences.
Dani walked over to a particular side of the deck. It had been here that, one long month ago, Jhayka and her had kissed in full sight of the crew, the morning after their first night together. She remembered the vinegar taste of Jhayka's tongue and mouth, the exhilirating yet strange experience of making love with an alien woman who, by Human standards, was not very attractive at all, but to whom Dani felt a strong, undying bond to. She wasn't about to lose that.
One of her subordinates came to her. "Admiral, we're ready, the fleet is moving into position."
"Make sure our automated defenses against the aerial bombs are ready, and signal the fleet; all boats are to make full speed down Canal 2 toward the closest point toward the Sackon Warehouse." Dani walked past the girl toward her command bridge. I'm coming, Jhayka, I'm coming.
The attacks came from everywhere. The allies' remaining artillery, what forces they had along the river bank, and of course the Gilean Air Force's aircraft, almost always overhead at Kalunda.
Dani remained in the command bridge, watching as virtually every remaining ship she had raced toward Canal 2, drawing the attention of every enemy unit in the area. They knew something was up now, and most had probably already suspected that someone important was at the Sackon Warehouse; her fleet's sortie confirmed this for them.
The fire was heavy, virtually as heavy as it'd been over a week before when they had thwarted the oil attack on the river. But Dani knew her crews wouldn't flinch. That wonderful fatalism of the Kalundans, sensuous and hedonistic in peace but calmly resolute in the face of death, worked to her advantage here, and all of her crews worked as one mind to their mission; saving Jhayka.
There were explosions around them, engulfing them and covering them in a hail of fire that obscured the other boats from view. Shells and bombs that managed to hit boats. Some exploded, their crews claimed, others merely began to sink with their crews scrambling to abandon the boats and swim to the shore. She prayed to God - or whatever He was - that they'd get there intact.
Inside the Sackon warehouse Ilavna had conducted more surgery on aliens than she had ever imagined might be possible to do, for any Taloran physician, in all of history, and she was a mere student, though now fully a doctor by the bloody experience of the battle. Yet for each surgery she conducted to save the life of one of the defenders she had to return at once after it and attend to the stricken Jhayka, her liege-lady. It was there, Jhayka quite comfortably unconscious and oblivious to the fight by her, when the terrific cannonade began, and the sound of countless bombs falling, screaming through the air, exploding, warned that the rescue operation was beginning.
“Get the surgical cases ready for transport!” She cried, leaping up from Jhayka for a moment, looking around to the corpsmen of the battalion that she was directing. “Get them prepped and begin hauling them to the rear of the warehouse for the final dash!” At least it didn't begin while I was in the midst of surgery, she thought, praying thanks to the Lord of Justice with her thoughts as she knelt down by Jhayka once more to work on prepping her to be moved, as well.
The run for the squadron was short; the distance to be covered under fire was not far, mercifully, and son enough the warehouse was in clear sight. They pulled up alongside the warehouse under heavy fire, their guns returning the fire on enemy position as Amber and her troops tied the boats up to the quay. The armed women leapt out as others, stripped down to their tight silken underclothes for ease of running, hefted supplies and ran them to the troops in the warehouse. Dani emerged from the Liberty's command bridge and stood near the railing for a brief moment before one of the young girls on the bridge, a cute half-Arab, pulled her swiftly under cover, hissing, "Admiral, you must stay down!"
Explosions erupted from around them. Dani looked toward the bow and saw the Harriet Tubman reduced to flames from a direct hit by an aerial bomb. The surviving crew were leaping off into the water and onto the quay, where they soon came to the Liberty.
From within the warehouse the wounded emerged, as well as the prisoners. They were all herded toward Liberty and Emancipator. As they came on gunfire from the north forced their heads down; the allied troops on the riverbank were heading south, trying to stop the evacuation.
Amber's voice barely carried over the sounds of battle. "Hold your positions! Hold! Kalunda Invictis!" From the boats, small anti-personnel weapons and flamethrowers were used on the advancing primitivists, trying to prevent their evacuation, while Dani imagined the Gilean air controllers trying to direct heavier airstrikes on her position. Hurry, hurry she urged the others.
The advancing allies, Stirlins in this case, did actually manage to get within range of the boats. As their allies fell around them they jumped through the cover used by Amber's troops and it came down to a hand-to-hand fight. The girls of the Naval Infantry fought back ferociously, led by Amber herself. She saw the first one coming at her, a woman with a skin tone like her own but her body far more muscular, and she thrust her bayonet into the woman. Like a crazed beast the Stirlin woman slashed at her with her nails, cutting her bloodlessly thanks to her BDU's material, but still hurting. Amber pulled the trigger and put the woman down.
A girl next to her screamed and Amber turned to find a Stirlin man plunging a bayonet into the girl's upper chest, right at her heart. Amber brought her rifle up and plunged the diamonide bayoent through the back of his head, killing him instantly.
And then the pain came. Multiple sharp pains going through her left side, ripping into her hip, side, and ribs, the feel of shrapnel striking her, not deeply but with pain and intense burning, the metal red hot as it pierced her side. Amber fell, bleeding, and was soon hefted up by another young woman. "Orders from the Admiral to retreat; and we will not leave you here, Duchess!" the girl explained breathlessly as she dragged Amber forward.
Dani's heart quailed when Jhayka was brought on the Liberty, Illavna at her side helping them to bring her up with an attentive cool. Her lover was unconscious and clearly in a bad way, with what seemed like half of her side in bandages, a pathetic crumpled ear, and half of her left leg was missing. So was part of a finger, Dani could see as she looked closer in a morbid mix of shock and curioustiy.
Tears flowing from her eyes once more, and eminently aware of how unprofessional it was but not caring, Dani looked to Illavna for a word, anything, and was only slightly re-assured when she felt the words Well, if you can get us back she will live, Danielle pass through her mind, courtesy of Illavna, and kept very gentle despite the sterness in them. For all the girl was naturally caring, for the sake of her great feudal lady, she would say such a thing sternly to the mind of another. Perhaps moreso to Danielle who could well be made to understand the importance for her personal reasons, and that certainly shocked Danielle back to action, and the effort of preparing the squadron to return to the dubious safety of hte city proper.
As they nearly cast off, a few members of the Naval Infantry returned to the ship with a half-conscious Amber in tow. The shrapnel wounds had ripped through the left side of her body, ironically the same side as Jhayka, but unlike the Princess', none looked very serious. "Let's go!" Dani shouted as the tie lines were cut loose and the signal flags for "Cast off!" were flashed down the line. The river boats broke off from the quay and raced north, carrying a cargo precious both to Danielle Verdes and to the City of Kalunda, and leaving behind the supplies needed to allow the Sackon warehouse to hold for as long as one man was left standing.
Back through the storm of shot and shell the squadron raced, the light howitzers of the Normans along the riverfront now joined by rocket salvoes, and again bombs came down over them. Opening up to full throttle they raced toward the protective maze of the city, and the great bridges spanning the huge length of the river which had been left intact by Norman demand so that success on the south bank might be followed with some celerity by a storming of the north.
Another of the heavy gunboats was lost to the power of a heavy laser guided bomb, stricken and its stern blown off, the water burning as it sank rapidly, and bravely several of the small craft came to a stop around its stricken form to take off the survivors. One of these was sunk in turn by the artillery but its crew was rescued by the rest, and they made their way clear to the tail of the sadly diminished squadron into the warren of the city, the ground fire slacked off and the aircraft with their ordnance expended. All the firing against them having ceased, Danielle had her ships dispersed and instructed them to head for their respective births inside the small canals lining the waterfront, usually just large enough for pleasure craft and not much wider than a mooring birth for the large gunboats.
Sadly depleted, teh fleet was nonetheless successful in all respects of its operation. Only six patients had been lost in the transport aboard the one sunken heavy gunboat; two aboard it had actually been rescued along with the survivors of the crew. The Sackon warehouse was resupplied so that it might hold, and above all, Jhayka was still alive, and now she would be sure to live for as long as Kalunda itself lived. Ilavna, dutiful of her charge, left without a word to desperately worried Danielle, and hastened to have Jhayka on her litter brought to the underground tunnels where an electric transporter vehicle waited to haul her off straight to the hospital facilities where the equipment had been moved deep in the bunkers. There, most of her organs would be shut down in succession and healed with drugs and microsurgery while her body was kept alive on machines: A major process, but one that would restore her to health save her flesh-wounds and lost extremities within a matter of a few days. Her war was not over.
Thentis, Gilead
DAY FORTY-FIVE
William was at his grandmother's bedside when Sara's eyes opened for the first time in days. The anesthetics in her system had finally worn off, and her wounds were mostly healed from the advanced technology brought with them on the Fabian.
"William," he heard her say in a low voice as she looked around at the bedroom, the one she had claimed from the former governor of Thentis. "William, what day is it?!"
"It's the 23rd of December," William answered her, using their universe's calendar. "You've been out for the past few days healing."
"The MacCullochs, Stanton, where are they?"
William's eyes fell. "They... they didn't make it."
Sara nodded slowly. She looked away from her grandson for a moment and closed her eyes, breathing a prayer. "I was going to be the godmother of their children, when they had them."
"They loved you, Grandmother. They had no regrets, I'm sure of it."
"If only I could say the same." Sara looked back to him, a few tears coming down her eyes, which would likely have been more if she weren't trying to control her reaction in front of William. "Has the army moved?"
"General Dao Zhi is leading them to the rendezvous with the Magestrix Avrila," William answered. "Mei-Li and her squadron remained behind with Major Winston to escort you to them as soon as you are healthy to move, which should be tomorrow by what Doctor Smithfield has said." William swallowed and took his grandmother's hand. "Grandmother, we have a problem though."
"What?"
"The Fabian intercepted civilian communications from Quanzhi. The Gilean government has changed hands. Marcus de la Hoya was assassinated on the 13th and the new leader of Gilead is General Covington, the head of military intelligence. He's ordered the Gilean Air Force to bomb Kalunda in support of the Normans."
11:00
Sara's eyes widened. "He what?1"
"Yes. His press statements have announced that the attacks on Kalunda are due to the presence of the foreign citizens in the defense of the city who, he claims, were agents sent by the foreign powers intervening in Gilead to provoke a crisis. He's called on every world in the Confederacy to rise up against the intervention powers."
"Damned fool." Sara put a hand over her face, resting her head against it. Everything I've done could be for nothing.... "Do we know when the intervention forces will arrive?"
"Not at the moment, Grandmother."
Sara sighed. After a moment she went to get up. "I have to go to the army..."
"You can, Grandmother, tomorrow," William said, putting a hand on her shoulder as if to force her back on the bed. "But you must get some rest now."
Between the stiffness in her body, having been mostly still for far too long, and the shock of learning of the deaths of two of her oldest cohorts and the situation as a whole, Sara lacked the energy to overcome her grandson, and relented to remaining in the bed.
(co-authored section by Marina and I.)
DAY 46
On the Kalunda River.
For the human history of the Alliance, there was little more glorious than what was being attempted now. Water-born rescue had all the hallmarks of fame, stoked by the legacy of Dunkirk. Danielle Verdes had a greater purpose to this operation than the mere daring that it entailed to bring small boats on the river to the relief of a surrounded garrison while under continuous air assault. Her lover was in the Sackon warehouse, and she was going to go save her live.
Amber found Danielle in the command bridge of Liberty, staying in the cramped space and desperately trying to keep her riverboat fleet in the fight after the losses taken in the air strikes, as she spoke with one of the girls of the communications department. At the moment Amber was in a new uniform, that of the commanding Major of the understrength "Naval Infantry Battalion" of the Crimson Guard that had been formed from the crews of lost ships and ships too damaged to be in service for the moment. Amber knew that Dani would probably end up in the same unit, because eventually the airstrikes would destroy her fleet. She just didn't know if Dani had it in her to fight on the land as something more than fire support; a competent hand-to-hand combatant, Dani wasn't a soldier and unlike Amber had never fought on the land or even trained for it.
The girl nodded and left. Above, she would have the message sent by signal flags to the rest of the fleet, a measure taken to limit electronic transmission and avoid the Gilean aerial mines and bombs from hitting them by following their electronic emissions, and as old as the sea itself as a means of commanding ships in action. Dani turned to Amber, acknowledging her with a casual salute. "How many troops do we have loaded on the boats?"
"I have most of the battalion on board now," Amber replied. "But we're just an understrength battalion, a couple companies, we can't break an encirclement."
"No, but with the firepower of the fleet I can punch you a hole big enough for you to slip through and get them out. Now get the troops we have in the area and have them ready to launch some kind of distraction, anything to buy us time and pin the enemy down. We're leaving in just a few minutes."
Amber left to finish the preperations, and Dani took leave from the command bridge a moment later, venturing to the upper deck. Around her was ruin and rubble. Kalunda, once called the Jewel of the East not just for her devotion to civilization but because of her gorgeous neo-Classical Greco-Roman architecture, was now a city of crushed stone and marble, reduced to this not only by the Normans but by the very government that had once vowed to defend Kalunda. Tears flowed down Dani's eyes as she recalled what it was like to stand on the deck of Amber's yacht, what seemed like ages ago, and look out at the beautiful waterfront of the city. It was an expression of emotion she could not avoid at a time already fraught with the emotion of dealing with Jhayka's injuries.
What kind of madness had gripped the leaders of Gilead? They had been the ones to fail and yet they were punishing the victims, as if reducing Kalunda would somehow magically drive away the intervention forces. So what if they succeeded? She and Jhayka and Illavna and even Julio might die, but this would only guarantee the responsible were marched up a gallows or in front of a firing squad, assuming they survived the kind of war that the outside powers could bring upon them in vengeance for siding with barbarians like the Normans. What kind of madness was that?
Maybe the same kind of madness I'd have if I were the one facing obliteration or servitude. Had she not, after all, vowed to die rather than be enslaved? In a way that was precisely what the Gileans were doing; knowing that the outside powers would certainly dismember their Confederacy in some way or another, they had chosen to fight to the death instead of accepting the inevitable. The Clans that Trajan once belonged to had gone the same route, with similar consequences.
Dani walked over to a particular side of the deck. It had been here that, one long month ago, Jhayka and her had kissed in full sight of the crew, the morning after their first night together. She remembered the vinegar taste of Jhayka's tongue and mouth, the exhilirating yet strange experience of making love with an alien woman who, by Human standards, was not very attractive at all, but to whom Dani felt a strong, undying bond to. She wasn't about to lose that.
One of her subordinates came to her. "Admiral, we're ready, the fleet is moving into position."
"Make sure our automated defenses against the aerial bombs are ready, and signal the fleet; all boats are to make full speed down Canal 2 toward the closest point toward the Sackon Warehouse." Dani walked past the girl toward her command bridge. I'm coming, Jhayka, I'm coming.
The attacks came from everywhere. The allies' remaining artillery, what forces they had along the river bank, and of course the Gilean Air Force's aircraft, almost always overhead at Kalunda.
Dani remained in the command bridge, watching as virtually every remaining ship she had raced toward Canal 2, drawing the attention of every enemy unit in the area. They knew something was up now, and most had probably already suspected that someone important was at the Sackon Warehouse; her fleet's sortie confirmed this for them.
The fire was heavy, virtually as heavy as it'd been over a week before when they had thwarted the oil attack on the river. But Dani knew her crews wouldn't flinch. That wonderful fatalism of the Kalundans, sensuous and hedonistic in peace but calmly resolute in the face of death, worked to her advantage here, and all of her crews worked as one mind to their mission; saving Jhayka.
There were explosions around them, engulfing them and covering them in a hail of fire that obscured the other boats from view. Shells and bombs that managed to hit boats. Some exploded, their crews claimed, others merely began to sink with their crews scrambling to abandon the boats and swim to the shore. She prayed to God - or whatever He was - that they'd get there intact.
Inside the Sackon warehouse Ilavna had conducted more surgery on aliens than she had ever imagined might be possible to do, for any Taloran physician, in all of history, and she was a mere student, though now fully a doctor by the bloody experience of the battle. Yet for each surgery she conducted to save the life of one of the defenders she had to return at once after it and attend to the stricken Jhayka, her liege-lady. It was there, Jhayka quite comfortably unconscious and oblivious to the fight by her, when the terrific cannonade began, and the sound of countless bombs falling, screaming through the air, exploding, warned that the rescue operation was beginning.
“Get the surgical cases ready for transport!” She cried, leaping up from Jhayka for a moment, looking around to the corpsmen of the battalion that she was directing. “Get them prepped and begin hauling them to the rear of the warehouse for the final dash!” At least it didn't begin while I was in the midst of surgery, she thought, praying thanks to the Lord of Justice with her thoughts as she knelt down by Jhayka once more to work on prepping her to be moved, as well.
The run for the squadron was short; the distance to be covered under fire was not far, mercifully, and son enough the warehouse was in clear sight. They pulled up alongside the warehouse under heavy fire, their guns returning the fire on enemy position as Amber and her troops tied the boats up to the quay. The armed women leapt out as others, stripped down to their tight silken underclothes for ease of running, hefted supplies and ran them to the troops in the warehouse. Dani emerged from the Liberty's command bridge and stood near the railing for a brief moment before one of the young girls on the bridge, a cute half-Arab, pulled her swiftly under cover, hissing, "Admiral, you must stay down!"
Explosions erupted from around them. Dani looked toward the bow and saw the Harriet Tubman reduced to flames from a direct hit by an aerial bomb. The surviving crew were leaping off into the water and onto the quay, where they soon came to the Liberty.
From within the warehouse the wounded emerged, as well as the prisoners. They were all herded toward Liberty and Emancipator. As they came on gunfire from the north forced their heads down; the allied troops on the riverbank were heading south, trying to stop the evacuation.
Amber's voice barely carried over the sounds of battle. "Hold your positions! Hold! Kalunda Invictis!" From the boats, small anti-personnel weapons and flamethrowers were used on the advancing primitivists, trying to prevent their evacuation, while Dani imagined the Gilean air controllers trying to direct heavier airstrikes on her position. Hurry, hurry she urged the others.
The advancing allies, Stirlins in this case, did actually manage to get within range of the boats. As their allies fell around them they jumped through the cover used by Amber's troops and it came down to a hand-to-hand fight. The girls of the Naval Infantry fought back ferociously, led by Amber herself. She saw the first one coming at her, a woman with a skin tone like her own but her body far more muscular, and she thrust her bayonet into the woman. Like a crazed beast the Stirlin woman slashed at her with her nails, cutting her bloodlessly thanks to her BDU's material, but still hurting. Amber pulled the trigger and put the woman down.
A girl next to her screamed and Amber turned to find a Stirlin man plunging a bayonet into the girl's upper chest, right at her heart. Amber brought her rifle up and plunged the diamonide bayoent through the back of his head, killing him instantly.
And then the pain came. Multiple sharp pains going through her left side, ripping into her hip, side, and ribs, the feel of shrapnel striking her, not deeply but with pain and intense burning, the metal red hot as it pierced her side. Amber fell, bleeding, and was soon hefted up by another young woman. "Orders from the Admiral to retreat; and we will not leave you here, Duchess!" the girl explained breathlessly as she dragged Amber forward.
Dani's heart quailed when Jhayka was brought on the Liberty, Illavna at her side helping them to bring her up with an attentive cool. Her lover was unconscious and clearly in a bad way, with what seemed like half of her side in bandages, a pathetic crumpled ear, and half of her left leg was missing. So was part of a finger, Dani could see as she looked closer in a morbid mix of shock and curioustiy.
Tears flowing from her eyes once more, and eminently aware of how unprofessional it was but not caring, Dani looked to Illavna for a word, anything, and was only slightly re-assured when she felt the words Well, if you can get us back she will live, Danielle pass through her mind, courtesy of Illavna, and kept very gentle despite the sterness in them. For all the girl was naturally caring, for the sake of her great feudal lady, she would say such a thing sternly to the mind of another. Perhaps moreso to Danielle who could well be made to understand the importance for her personal reasons, and that certainly shocked Danielle back to action, and the effort of preparing the squadron to return to the dubious safety of hte city proper.
As they nearly cast off, a few members of the Naval Infantry returned to the ship with a half-conscious Amber in tow. The shrapnel wounds had ripped through the left side of her body, ironically the same side as Jhayka, but unlike the Princess', none looked very serious. "Let's go!" Dani shouted as the tie lines were cut loose and the signal flags for "Cast off!" were flashed down the line. The river boats broke off from the quay and raced north, carrying a cargo precious both to Danielle Verdes and to the City of Kalunda, and leaving behind the supplies needed to allow the Sackon warehouse to hold for as long as one man was left standing.
Back through the storm of shot and shell the squadron raced, the light howitzers of the Normans along the riverfront now joined by rocket salvoes, and again bombs came down over them. Opening up to full throttle they raced toward the protective maze of the city, and the great bridges spanning the huge length of the river which had been left intact by Norman demand so that success on the south bank might be followed with some celerity by a storming of the north.
Another of the heavy gunboats was lost to the power of a heavy laser guided bomb, stricken and its stern blown off, the water burning as it sank rapidly, and bravely several of the small craft came to a stop around its stricken form to take off the survivors. One of these was sunk in turn by the artillery but its crew was rescued by the rest, and they made their way clear to the tail of the sadly diminished squadron into the warren of the city, the ground fire slacked off and the aircraft with their ordnance expended. All the firing against them having ceased, Danielle had her ships dispersed and instructed them to head for their respective births inside the small canals lining the waterfront, usually just large enough for pleasure craft and not much wider than a mooring birth for the large gunboats.
Sadly depleted, teh fleet was nonetheless successful in all respects of its operation. Only six patients had been lost in the transport aboard the one sunken heavy gunboat; two aboard it had actually been rescued along with the survivors of the crew. The Sackon warehouse was resupplied so that it might hold, and above all, Jhayka was still alive, and now she would be sure to live for as long as Kalunda itself lived. Ilavna, dutiful of her charge, left without a word to desperately worried Danielle, and hastened to have Jhayka on her litter brought to the underground tunnels where an electric transporter vehicle waited to haul her off straight to the hospital facilities where the equipment had been moved deep in the bunkers. There, most of her organs would be shut down in succession and healed with drugs and microsurgery while her body was kept alive on machines: A major process, but one that would restore her to health save her flesh-wounds and lost extremities within a matter of a few days. Her war was not over.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Co-written between myself and Marina
DNS Condoleeza Rice, Approaching Gilead
DAY 46
The Alliance contingent of the Intervention Fleet dropped out of warp near the incoming hyperspace jump point within one light second of it's determined arrival point - well within the margin of error desired.
A further spike of radiation appeared within ten light seconds of their arrival, heralding the arrival of the Taloran and Habsburg fleets in their respective arrival points as well.
The three fleets turned and faced what currently amounted for the Gilean System's defenses against hyperspace incursion from indigenious powers. It naturally predated the arrival of "extrauniversals", a "space fortress" base that was effectively designed, though cheaper than those of most other nations and only effective in dealing with enemies arriving in the hyperspace entry points of the system. It was accompanied by elements of the Gilean fleet, what hadn't rallied to New Friesland or another world or been already captured or neutralized by the British.
Said elements withdrew rather than fight, leaving the space fortress to come under the guns of the three major powers' dreadnoughts for only ten minutes before, threatened with destruction, it surrendered and voluntarily ejected it's remaining ammunition and weapons' fuel bunkers into space. Contingents of officers were prepared and sent aboard to take control of the station's key facilities, and they were barely settling in when the hyperspace energy points flared with energy and the British, French, Slavian, Catalinian, and Hispanic contingents arrived.
Together now, with the minesweepers available moving into position within the fleet's protective formation, the international force made it's best common speed for Gilead itself.
It was the Marchioness of Sapai's first operational task as a Chief of Staff, and she loved the ability to execute it, to make at such a young age this crucial step toward promotion as to have experience in combat operations as the chief of staff of a commanding admiral of a battle-fleet, more important than even ship captaincy or a Commodore's rate to the progression of one's career. She had to arrange the coordination of the two fleet elements very precisely so that the ships dependent on the hyperspace energy points didn't jump in while the station was still fighting. Three Taloran dreadnoughts, three Habsburg dreadnoughts, and three Alliance dreadnoughts had completed the reduction of the station with the support of a brace of Alliance battlecruisers (they were actually ADN Nagato-class "escort battleships" but the distinction was lost on the Marchioness) and the carriers were now deploying behind them as well; only the Alliance forces had heavy carriers with the Habsburgs and Talorans instead having a multitude of smaller light and escort carriers. The Marchioness observed as the local powers deployed their fleets in turn.. And then took note of their arrival and turned to report: "We've cleared the whole fleet through from hyperspace, Admiral." A moment later a second report: "Boarding parties have arrived as ordered to secure the station. We're clear here, Sir. The fleet is ready to advance."
As it was not yet midnight GST, the command of the fleet was still under Admiral Cradock. The victor of New Queensville was standing at the center of the STELCOM facilities on the Condoleeza Rice, splendid in his Royal Navy uniform and standing out against the sea of dark ANSN uniforms. Still surveying the arriving formations, Cradock made the order: "Best common speed to the edge of the Gilean minefield. I want fighter squadrons at all points around the fleet as well as interceptors flying in defense of the minesweepers."
"Understood, Admiral," the Marchioness of Sapai kept a calm and businesslike atmosphere in the staff that she was running, which consisted entirely of humans except for her personal assistants. It was certainly interesting to be working so close to them, and she took the diplomatic pressure of her position seriously. The display readouts designed the positions of the fleet, now formed up, as she typed up the orders in the Admiral's name and sent them to the designated forces: First the fighters, deployment orders to assume a regular point-screen, and then for the best fleet speed to the edge of the minefield, the interceptors spreading to position themselves with the minesweepers, now at the rear of the fleet, but of course they'd come up as the fleet positioned itself in high orbit. The main question was the position of the Gilean fleet, and this the Marchioness constantly scanned the data-reports for some indication of.
As the Intervention Fleet made it's way toward the minefield, the Gilean fleet maintained itself in close solar orbit, using the sun's gravity well and low power output to hide themselves from detection as long as possible. The fleet was commanded by Rear Admiral Gregory Krueger, a native Gilean and denizen of Cranstonville who was in favor of Covington's military junta, though not confident at all that the course of resistance was the one to take. Nevertheless, he was a man who obeyed orders, if nothing else, and his orders were to maintain the fleet in hiding until the enemy exposed it's minesweepers, then to attack with a focus upon them to knock out as many as possible. To, in the long run, buy the extra bits of time Covington needed for his desired uprisings to spread across the worlds of the torn Confederacy and, through the need of suppression, tear the fragile coalition of intervention apart.
And that would require waiting.
Cradock had only half an hour of command left when the fleet arrived at the minefield. The forward ships stopped and made room for the minesweepers while the vanguard of fighters took position within the minefield, easily avoiding them while the minesweepers prepared their specialized weapons and electronic measures needed for their mission.
The absence of the Gilean fleet concerned him, because he knew they had to be in system somewhere. The shadows of the gas giants were checked, leaving only hiding places closer to the sun itself. "Deploy reconnassiance squadrons to the inner system," was his next order. "The Gilean fleet has to be somewhere between here and the sun."
From one of the stations, a new report came: "Minesweepers beginning operation, sir." On a screen, the minesweepers crept forward, their particle and EM wide-area fields sweeping out and detonating or disabling mines. It would be a delicate operation, but this is what they had been trained for, and the fleet would remain in position to support them until the field was down.
"We've got them, Admiral," the Marchioness of Sapai interrupted the buzz on the flagbridge as she turned toward Cradock and his second, who would of course shortly become the one who she was reporting to, Admiral MacCallister, with the news which had just been reported from some of the forward Alliance pickets. "They're in a very close solar orbit, probably as close as they can get without engine assistance, and relying on hull armour alone. The transmissions are difficult to determine, but the fleet seems to be of the expected strength-- two or three dreadnoughts, ten battleships, and fourty-four lesser craft. Sixty craft at most, and almost all very small. This means that at least half their operational force, beyond those ships we've seized in drydock or already surrendered, is unaccounted for.. But they were not expected to be in this system, anyway."
"In other words, the fleet of New Friesland, which has always been semi-autonomous in the Gilean fleet," Cradock said in reply to the Marchioness. "They haven't decided whether to throw in with Covington or not, I wager." Cradock looked to MacCallister. "Admiral, my command time remaining is limited, but I would recommend we position blocking forces at the hyperspace entry point should New Friesland, for whatever reason, throw in with Covington."
"I concur, but we should make sure to deal with the Gilean fleet first."
"Ah, that won't take long." Cradock gave a self-assured smile. "Any moment now, they'll be coming to us. In their position, there is little more they can do than to try to eliminate our minesweepers and keep us from getting into orbit. And we are prepared for that."
But they didn't come. The shift in power took place and the fleet remained steady and refused to alter position. The Marchioness paced on the bridge, before at last sitting down again and persuing the reports coming in, handling the small affairs of the fleet and growing tired by the enemy's refusal to come out and face them. It would be up to MacCallister now to do decide if they would try to do anything to force the issue.
MacCallister came to her decision quickly. "Signal the Butler, I want airstrikes to commence on Gilead immediately, focusing on their planetary air force, followed by command and control and supply facilities. I'm not waiting another hour on the Aerospace Force, we'll just re-direct them to new targets."
Hecate Maxwell nearly ran out of the briefing room, where her squadron had been briefed on their target, making her way immediately to her storage locker and fitting on the bulky outer portion of her flight suit as fast as she could. The helmet came last, fitting into the emergency air supply tanks fitted onto her suit, and her next sprint brought her to the hanger and to her F/A-37C Super Corsair, already fitted out for the airstrike mission that had been planned. She nearly jumped up the ladder to the cockpit, Whitworth behind her, and settled into her seat. Her helmet hooked right up to the fighter's main life support system as she went through her pre-flight checks as swiftly and as thoroughly as possible, again with Whitworth's help.
One of the hanger deck technicians closed and air-sealed the cockpit as they finished strapping in. Hecate carefully released the wheels and allowed for the hanger deck vehicles to push her fighter out to it's individual launch bay, electromagnets activated and, upon the green light, pushed her fighter out of the ship and into open space. Hecate fired the main engines and took formation with her squadron as they moved into the minefield.
The minefield was slightly tricky, but nothing impossible, as Hecate's squadron weaved through it, LIDAR and mass-detection systems telling them where the mines were and their navigational computers helping them fly around them. Soon they were out of the minefield and approaching orbital space. Their target was Quanzhi AFB, the base from which Covington's junta was launching it's daily airstrikes in support of the Normans and their allies against Kalunda.
"Feet hot" was the call as the F/A-37Cs plunged into the atmosphere at a steep angle, flying hard over the ocean to strike the airbase from the west. All of Hecate's training came into play as she brought her fighter to level attitude and raced east with her squadron.
Whitworth gave the warning that the Gilean SAM network was activating. Hecate did nothing, as the squadron ahead of them cleared the way with radar-seekers that struck the local radar network and took it out. SAMs still fired, but without the ground-based radar for support the shots were not as effective, and not a single Marine jet was lost to them.
Open land raced under them now and the nav systems in Hecate's HUD confirmed they were coming up on the airbase. She switched to her smart bombs and, upon reception of firing data from her squadron commander, triggered them with a call of "Fox Three!". The bombs were high explosive penetrators and were aimed solely at the runway, blasting massive chunks into a series of them and leaving craters that would make use of the airfield impossible.
Meanwhile, around her, other fighters were letting loose with bunker-busters on the hardened Gilean hangers. Hanger after hanger exploded ferociously, the jets inside destroyed or otherwise rendered unusable.
Hecate came back around and took to shooting at the airfield's control tower. One of her two ASM missiles crashed into the middle of the tower and caused it to collapse. Hecate's arms strained against the strength of the stick, but weight training had honed them to easily control the craft, allowing her to bring the Corsair back around. Her index finger clenched around the finger trigger on her flight stick and the railguns in the Corsair's chin opened up, striking the airfield's sole remaining arms warehouse, which exploded magnificantly as Hecate pulled up.
"Quanzhi AFB neutralized," someone stated over the radio. "All squadrons RTB."
With the return-to-base order given, Hecate returned to formation with her squadron and prepared to make orbital egress over the ocean.
When she returned to the carrier about ten minutes later, she was only allowed five minutes to unsuit and relieve herself in the head before the next sortie would begin.
With a crash of radiation the 19th Long Range Fighter Group arrived in Gilead, accompanied by the 110th Tactical Bomber Group and the 19th Strategic Bomber Group. The Strat bombers fired first, from just outside the minefield, a barrage of shielded boosters carrying dozens of missiles and cluster warheads with inbuilt sensor-seekers that deployed over the pre-programmed areas and began to strike radar and other sensor stations across the planet. As the missile strikes played havoc on the planetary airspace radar grid, the tactical bombers achieved orbit and then orbital entry with their fighter escorts, their targets the airbases across the main continent as well as the control airbase in the Primitive Zone's Central Desert.
MacCallister watched from the Rice's STELCOM center as the strikes ravaged the Gilean Air Force, catching much of it on the ground. Those craft that managed to get in the air fought hard but futilely; their atmospheric craft were of older design and inferior technology and piloted by men and women only newly-experienced in the actual art of war, not up to fighting state-of-the-art Alliance aerospace craft piloted by veterans of over two major interstellar wars.
Another radiation crash heralded the arrival of yet another Expeditionary Wing, this one composed of the 23rd Long Range Fighter Group, the 32nd and 49th Tactical Bomber Groups, and the 8th Strrategic Bomber Squadron. With the exception of one squadron of new F-45 Spitfire IIs, the bombers and fighters spread to other airbases on Gilead, striking what was left of the GAF and also hitting C&C facilities.
Kalunda
The Allies had expended most of their SAMs on the air attack from the previous week, so they had precious little to begin with when the fighters of the 294th Squadron came overhead. As soon as the IFF codes were shown to be non-friendly the Normans and their allies opened up with their remaining anti-air defenses.
The 294th responded by evading, and their F-45s proved far better at it than the Marine F/A-37Cs had a week before. Anti-missile particle streams streaked out whenever a missile locked on, destroying or damaging many, while the fighters themselves armed their smart bombs and radar-seekers and began to bomb the remnant Allied air-defenses ferociously, with a number of bombs instead striking the jammers specifically set up by the Allies to prevent Kalunda from communicating with anything in orbit.
Just as it looked like the fight was about to end, the 294th spotted an incoming flight of Gilean bombers and fighters. From his seat, Squadron Leader Michael Long gave a short laugh and, with his Queen's English accent, gave the order for the squadron to engage. He pulled back on his flight stick and gained altitude to face off against the Gilean atmospheric jets. They were sleek, probably lighter than his craft and capable of tighter maneuvers without having the added mass and size from a built-in warp drive, but he had experience and state-of-the-art technology on his side.
Major Oliver Nuten noticed the contacts on his radar as the AF-19 Thunderstrike fighter he was piloting approached Kalunda. "We've got contacts above Kalunda not registering under our IFF list," he said. "HQ, please advise."
He was answered by static.
"I don't like this. All fighters, prepare for combat. Lock on missiles and fire, we'll buy the bombers time to fulfill their missions." With that, Nuten locked his long-range anti-fighter missiles, called Stingrays, on the aircraft flying toward him and over the ruins of besieged Kalunda. His computers managed two hard locks on two different fighters and he fired without waiting, anticipating his pilots to join them in the attack.
Warning chirps in his helmet's audio system told Long he was being targeted, and when it became a solid noise it confirmed a missile was inbound for him. He fired his afterburners and jinked away, his squadron breaking off to evade and to re-engage in individual flights and even pairs.
The missile after him was well-designed for atmospheric combat, but again the F-45 was equipped to shake off just such missiles. Long fired off some chaff and flares to trick the missile and twisted away, the G-forces tugging at him as he pulled back into line with the Gilean fighters and bombers coming toward Kalunda. He made sure to prioritize the bombers with a single button press on his targeting computer and waited for his AIM-304s to get a solid target lock.
They did, a moment later, just after he confirmed a renewed missile lock. His thumb pressed down on the missile trigger of his flight stick and sent four of his eight AIM-304s flying.
The Gilean tac-bombers saw the missiles coming in and tried to evade, but they were bigger, slower, less maneuverable.... and up against the latest in Alliance technology. Again the equation of experience and technology told against the Gileans when all of the missiles impacted. Two bombers simply disappeared in fireballs, only one of the crew for each managing to eject in time. The other two bombers were slightly luckier, taking "glancing" hits that merely blew off a wing and sent them spiraling out of control.
Long jinked hard, pulling his fighter into a tight curve and then shooting downward, giving his anti-missile systems a clear shot. Particle streams lashed out again and the anti-fighter missile coming after him blew up in mid-air. "All right, that's enough of this, mates. We're No. 3 Squadron! We shot down Jerry's bombers and won the Battle of Britain, I'm not gonna let these flunkies of a two-bit dictator make fools of us!"
Pulling up, Long found a Gilean fighter in his sights and turned to follow. Keeping in mind that the Gilean AF-19 was a bit more nimble than his F-45, Long kept a bit of distance and twisted and pulled at his stick to try and get a lock for his weapons, the range far too close for his few remaining AAM missiles.
Nuten had never realized just how deep Gilead was in it until he saw the missiles simply fail to take down any of the enemy. These weren't standard jets, and he'd have to be awfully damned good to bring any of them down with what he had.
And he, frankly, knew he wasn't up to that level.
All that was left was to survive, and so Nuten tried desperately to use his lighter craft to evade the Alliance fighters. His wingman, Captain Natalie Lawton, was trying to get onto the jet trailing him, buts he was also in trouble, being trailed by an Alliance fighter.
Nuten twisted, hoping maybe to get some shots off at the jet trying to get Lawton so she could clear his six, but just as he began to target Lawton's pursuer two streams of orange-tinted ruby energy struck out from the Alliance jet's front and speared Lawton's AF-19. She screamed, "I'm punching out!" and as the AF-19 blew apart he saw her ejection seat drift downward.
Nevertheless he targeted the jet who had shot Lawton down, determined to get at least one kill.
Long was happy to see Flying Officer Townsend succeed, but also knew that the rusty-haired Liverpooler was in danger as long as the Gilean stayed on him. Long reached for his cannon selector and brought up the twin nuclear-disruptor cannons, with their twenty-degree off-axis firing ability, and continued to maneuver tightly to get the Gilean in his sights. The indicator kept slipping around the Gilean jet, taunting him, taunting him with it's refusal to turn red and lock on...
Townsend twisted hard and plunged toward Kalunda, prompting the Gilean and thus Long to do the same. They were over the ruins of the Kalundan Royal Palace when Townsend straightened up and flew level over it, the Gilean soon mimicing the maneuver. Fortunately, this also kept him unmoving for the moment Long needed. The indicator on his HUD slipped over the Gilean AF-19 and turned red, the buzz in his audio systems telling Long that he had a solid shot. He pulled the index finger trigger and watched two solid beams of nuclear-disruptor energy lash out and cut into the unshielded Gilean fighter. Fire erupted from it's engines. Before the pilot could eject the entire craft exploded from the fatally-good shot that Long had given it. Long shouted, "That's a kill!" into the radio and gained altitude to rejoin the aerial fray above them.
Nuten's death and the early demise of the bombers to the missiles from Long's squadron had completely demoralized the Gilean fighters, and most were just trying to break away as Long and his squadron relentlessly pursued them. It was a most unfair fight; the Gileans were in decades-old atmospheric craft without deflector shields and with old missiles too easily spoofed or destroyed by the anti-missile systems on the Alliance fighters. The F-45s, however, were top of the line aerospace fighters from one of the most technological-advanced societies in the Multiverse, piloted by experienced war veterans, and their peformance and weaponry showed both.
Again, it simply wasn't fair.
But when it came down to it, Long didn't give a damn, and he laughed heartily when a missile from Pilot Officer Tammy Wellington brought the last Gilean AF-19 down for good. Another victory for the squadron over an idiotic enemy, one that had been helping a bunch of rapists and fanatics attack a decent, civilized people. As far as he was concerned, they all got what they deserved.
Long looked back as his squadron made one last turn over the general region of Kalunda to begin atmospheric exit. Smoke rose from the ground, where they'd pounded the primitives but good. With the entire squadron behind him in formation Long purposely flew over the city of Kalunda, while he boosted the gain on his radio and broadcast a general message, strong enough to break through what was left of the local jamming. "Hullo, Kalunda! This is Squadron Leader Michael Long, 294th Fighter Squadron of the Allied Nations Aerospace Force, but we're better known as No. 3 Squadron of Her Majesty's Royal Air Force. Thought you'd like to know that rescue is comin' soon, cheerio! And to any of you cheeky primitivist rapist bastards listenin' in too, you can all kiss my hairy English arse!"
"Did you have to do the 'cheerio' bit, Sir?" a Londoner voice asked over the squadron radio.
"Why not?" was Long's cheerful reply as the F-45 Spitfire IIs roared out over the ocean and up to orbit.
Cranstonville
Within the Gilean Planetary Defense Bunker, the reports had left Covington bewildered and enraged. The minefield was being swept away and the Gilean Air Force, the one thing that might have ensured the fall of Kalunda before the invaders arrived, was now out of commission. He had nothing to ensure the damned city of traitors fell before it could be relieved. Nothing to ensure that a victory over Kalunda could be used to rally the peoples of the Confederacy to heroic resistance against the invasion.
His only hope, now, was to buy more time for the fall of Kalunda to be achieved by what the primitivists had left. And that meant using the fleet, even though those damned New Frieslanders had yet to honor their commitments to the Confederacy and send their fleet to his aid.
Most of the planet's communications network was gone, but the air strikes hadn't yet hit underground transmitters that allowed for him to establish a tachyon-based channel to the fleet hiding near the sun. Admiral Krueger appeared on his screen, static and fuzz showing the interference of the Gilean sun. "Admiral, we have no choice. We cannot wait for the fleet under New Frieslander control to arrive and place our enemies between two fires. You must launch now and destroy their minesweepers."
"Gen.... Mister President, we don't have enough firepower...."
"You'll have to make it work anyway. Dammit, we just lost the Air Force and they're turning our planetary defenses and communications into rubble! You must strike now and take out the minesweepers before they can get through and start landing troops!" Covington pointed a trembling finger at the screen. "That's a direct order, and if you can't follow it I'll find someone in your fleet who can!"
Krueger nodded and grimly replied, "We'll give it our all, Mister President. Krueger out."
Covington saw Krueger's image disappear and turned back to his digital display of Gilead, where the damage to the planetary C&C network and airfields was showing everywhere. He had gambled and he had, apparently, failed. But he wouldn't let it end like this, no.... he would become the leader of the Gilean Confederacy, an independent Confederacy, and he'd drive these meddlers out for good.
Either that, or he would die.... and he'd bring with him to the grave as many of the bastards - on their side and on his - as he could.
DNS Condoleeza Rice, Approaching Gilead
DAY 46
The Alliance contingent of the Intervention Fleet dropped out of warp near the incoming hyperspace jump point within one light second of it's determined arrival point - well within the margin of error desired.
A further spike of radiation appeared within ten light seconds of their arrival, heralding the arrival of the Taloran and Habsburg fleets in their respective arrival points as well.
The three fleets turned and faced what currently amounted for the Gilean System's defenses against hyperspace incursion from indigenious powers. It naturally predated the arrival of "extrauniversals", a "space fortress" base that was effectively designed, though cheaper than those of most other nations and only effective in dealing with enemies arriving in the hyperspace entry points of the system. It was accompanied by elements of the Gilean fleet, what hadn't rallied to New Friesland or another world or been already captured or neutralized by the British.
Said elements withdrew rather than fight, leaving the space fortress to come under the guns of the three major powers' dreadnoughts for only ten minutes before, threatened with destruction, it surrendered and voluntarily ejected it's remaining ammunition and weapons' fuel bunkers into space. Contingents of officers were prepared and sent aboard to take control of the station's key facilities, and they were barely settling in when the hyperspace energy points flared with energy and the British, French, Slavian, Catalinian, and Hispanic contingents arrived.
Together now, with the minesweepers available moving into position within the fleet's protective formation, the international force made it's best common speed for Gilead itself.
It was the Marchioness of Sapai's first operational task as a Chief of Staff, and she loved the ability to execute it, to make at such a young age this crucial step toward promotion as to have experience in combat operations as the chief of staff of a commanding admiral of a battle-fleet, more important than even ship captaincy or a Commodore's rate to the progression of one's career. She had to arrange the coordination of the two fleet elements very precisely so that the ships dependent on the hyperspace energy points didn't jump in while the station was still fighting. Three Taloran dreadnoughts, three Habsburg dreadnoughts, and three Alliance dreadnoughts had completed the reduction of the station with the support of a brace of Alliance battlecruisers (they were actually ADN Nagato-class "escort battleships" but the distinction was lost on the Marchioness) and the carriers were now deploying behind them as well; only the Alliance forces had heavy carriers with the Habsburgs and Talorans instead having a multitude of smaller light and escort carriers. The Marchioness observed as the local powers deployed their fleets in turn.. And then took note of their arrival and turned to report: "We've cleared the whole fleet through from hyperspace, Admiral." A moment later a second report: "Boarding parties have arrived as ordered to secure the station. We're clear here, Sir. The fleet is ready to advance."
As it was not yet midnight GST, the command of the fleet was still under Admiral Cradock. The victor of New Queensville was standing at the center of the STELCOM facilities on the Condoleeza Rice, splendid in his Royal Navy uniform and standing out against the sea of dark ANSN uniforms. Still surveying the arriving formations, Cradock made the order: "Best common speed to the edge of the Gilean minefield. I want fighter squadrons at all points around the fleet as well as interceptors flying in defense of the minesweepers."
"Understood, Admiral," the Marchioness of Sapai kept a calm and businesslike atmosphere in the staff that she was running, which consisted entirely of humans except for her personal assistants. It was certainly interesting to be working so close to them, and she took the diplomatic pressure of her position seriously. The display readouts designed the positions of the fleet, now formed up, as she typed up the orders in the Admiral's name and sent them to the designated forces: First the fighters, deployment orders to assume a regular point-screen, and then for the best fleet speed to the edge of the minefield, the interceptors spreading to position themselves with the minesweepers, now at the rear of the fleet, but of course they'd come up as the fleet positioned itself in high orbit. The main question was the position of the Gilean fleet, and this the Marchioness constantly scanned the data-reports for some indication of.
As the Intervention Fleet made it's way toward the minefield, the Gilean fleet maintained itself in close solar orbit, using the sun's gravity well and low power output to hide themselves from detection as long as possible. The fleet was commanded by Rear Admiral Gregory Krueger, a native Gilean and denizen of Cranstonville who was in favor of Covington's military junta, though not confident at all that the course of resistance was the one to take. Nevertheless, he was a man who obeyed orders, if nothing else, and his orders were to maintain the fleet in hiding until the enemy exposed it's minesweepers, then to attack with a focus upon them to knock out as many as possible. To, in the long run, buy the extra bits of time Covington needed for his desired uprisings to spread across the worlds of the torn Confederacy and, through the need of suppression, tear the fragile coalition of intervention apart.
And that would require waiting.
Cradock had only half an hour of command left when the fleet arrived at the minefield. The forward ships stopped and made room for the minesweepers while the vanguard of fighters took position within the minefield, easily avoiding them while the minesweepers prepared their specialized weapons and electronic measures needed for their mission.
The absence of the Gilean fleet concerned him, because he knew they had to be in system somewhere. The shadows of the gas giants were checked, leaving only hiding places closer to the sun itself. "Deploy reconnassiance squadrons to the inner system," was his next order. "The Gilean fleet has to be somewhere between here and the sun."
From one of the stations, a new report came: "Minesweepers beginning operation, sir." On a screen, the minesweepers crept forward, their particle and EM wide-area fields sweeping out and detonating or disabling mines. It would be a delicate operation, but this is what they had been trained for, and the fleet would remain in position to support them until the field was down.
"We've got them, Admiral," the Marchioness of Sapai interrupted the buzz on the flagbridge as she turned toward Cradock and his second, who would of course shortly become the one who she was reporting to, Admiral MacCallister, with the news which had just been reported from some of the forward Alliance pickets. "They're in a very close solar orbit, probably as close as they can get without engine assistance, and relying on hull armour alone. The transmissions are difficult to determine, but the fleet seems to be of the expected strength-- two or three dreadnoughts, ten battleships, and fourty-four lesser craft. Sixty craft at most, and almost all very small. This means that at least half their operational force, beyond those ships we've seized in drydock or already surrendered, is unaccounted for.. But they were not expected to be in this system, anyway."
"In other words, the fleet of New Friesland, which has always been semi-autonomous in the Gilean fleet," Cradock said in reply to the Marchioness. "They haven't decided whether to throw in with Covington or not, I wager." Cradock looked to MacCallister. "Admiral, my command time remaining is limited, but I would recommend we position blocking forces at the hyperspace entry point should New Friesland, for whatever reason, throw in with Covington."
"I concur, but we should make sure to deal with the Gilean fleet first."
"Ah, that won't take long." Cradock gave a self-assured smile. "Any moment now, they'll be coming to us. In their position, there is little more they can do than to try to eliminate our minesweepers and keep us from getting into orbit. And we are prepared for that."
But they didn't come. The shift in power took place and the fleet remained steady and refused to alter position. The Marchioness paced on the bridge, before at last sitting down again and persuing the reports coming in, handling the small affairs of the fleet and growing tired by the enemy's refusal to come out and face them. It would be up to MacCallister now to do decide if they would try to do anything to force the issue.
MacCallister came to her decision quickly. "Signal the Butler, I want airstrikes to commence on Gilead immediately, focusing on their planetary air force, followed by command and control and supply facilities. I'm not waiting another hour on the Aerospace Force, we'll just re-direct them to new targets."
Hecate Maxwell nearly ran out of the briefing room, where her squadron had been briefed on their target, making her way immediately to her storage locker and fitting on the bulky outer portion of her flight suit as fast as she could. The helmet came last, fitting into the emergency air supply tanks fitted onto her suit, and her next sprint brought her to the hanger and to her F/A-37C Super Corsair, already fitted out for the airstrike mission that had been planned. She nearly jumped up the ladder to the cockpit, Whitworth behind her, and settled into her seat. Her helmet hooked right up to the fighter's main life support system as she went through her pre-flight checks as swiftly and as thoroughly as possible, again with Whitworth's help.
One of the hanger deck technicians closed and air-sealed the cockpit as they finished strapping in. Hecate carefully released the wheels and allowed for the hanger deck vehicles to push her fighter out to it's individual launch bay, electromagnets activated and, upon the green light, pushed her fighter out of the ship and into open space. Hecate fired the main engines and took formation with her squadron as they moved into the minefield.
The minefield was slightly tricky, but nothing impossible, as Hecate's squadron weaved through it, LIDAR and mass-detection systems telling them where the mines were and their navigational computers helping them fly around them. Soon they were out of the minefield and approaching orbital space. Their target was Quanzhi AFB, the base from which Covington's junta was launching it's daily airstrikes in support of the Normans and their allies against Kalunda.
"Feet hot" was the call as the F/A-37Cs plunged into the atmosphere at a steep angle, flying hard over the ocean to strike the airbase from the west. All of Hecate's training came into play as she brought her fighter to level attitude and raced east with her squadron.
Whitworth gave the warning that the Gilean SAM network was activating. Hecate did nothing, as the squadron ahead of them cleared the way with radar-seekers that struck the local radar network and took it out. SAMs still fired, but without the ground-based radar for support the shots were not as effective, and not a single Marine jet was lost to them.
Open land raced under them now and the nav systems in Hecate's HUD confirmed they were coming up on the airbase. She switched to her smart bombs and, upon reception of firing data from her squadron commander, triggered them with a call of "Fox Three!". The bombs were high explosive penetrators and were aimed solely at the runway, blasting massive chunks into a series of them and leaving craters that would make use of the airfield impossible.
Meanwhile, around her, other fighters were letting loose with bunker-busters on the hardened Gilean hangers. Hanger after hanger exploded ferociously, the jets inside destroyed or otherwise rendered unusable.
Hecate came back around and took to shooting at the airfield's control tower. One of her two ASM missiles crashed into the middle of the tower and caused it to collapse. Hecate's arms strained against the strength of the stick, but weight training had honed them to easily control the craft, allowing her to bring the Corsair back around. Her index finger clenched around the finger trigger on her flight stick and the railguns in the Corsair's chin opened up, striking the airfield's sole remaining arms warehouse, which exploded magnificantly as Hecate pulled up.
"Quanzhi AFB neutralized," someone stated over the radio. "All squadrons RTB."
With the return-to-base order given, Hecate returned to formation with her squadron and prepared to make orbital egress over the ocean.
When she returned to the carrier about ten minutes later, she was only allowed five minutes to unsuit and relieve herself in the head before the next sortie would begin.
With a crash of radiation the 19th Long Range Fighter Group arrived in Gilead, accompanied by the 110th Tactical Bomber Group and the 19th Strategic Bomber Group. The Strat bombers fired first, from just outside the minefield, a barrage of shielded boosters carrying dozens of missiles and cluster warheads with inbuilt sensor-seekers that deployed over the pre-programmed areas and began to strike radar and other sensor stations across the planet. As the missile strikes played havoc on the planetary airspace radar grid, the tactical bombers achieved orbit and then orbital entry with their fighter escorts, their targets the airbases across the main continent as well as the control airbase in the Primitive Zone's Central Desert.
MacCallister watched from the Rice's STELCOM center as the strikes ravaged the Gilean Air Force, catching much of it on the ground. Those craft that managed to get in the air fought hard but futilely; their atmospheric craft were of older design and inferior technology and piloted by men and women only newly-experienced in the actual art of war, not up to fighting state-of-the-art Alliance aerospace craft piloted by veterans of over two major interstellar wars.
Another radiation crash heralded the arrival of yet another Expeditionary Wing, this one composed of the 23rd Long Range Fighter Group, the 32nd and 49th Tactical Bomber Groups, and the 8th Strrategic Bomber Squadron. With the exception of one squadron of new F-45 Spitfire IIs, the bombers and fighters spread to other airbases on Gilead, striking what was left of the GAF and also hitting C&C facilities.
Kalunda
The Allies had expended most of their SAMs on the air attack from the previous week, so they had precious little to begin with when the fighters of the 294th Squadron came overhead. As soon as the IFF codes were shown to be non-friendly the Normans and their allies opened up with their remaining anti-air defenses.
The 294th responded by evading, and their F-45s proved far better at it than the Marine F/A-37Cs had a week before. Anti-missile particle streams streaked out whenever a missile locked on, destroying or damaging many, while the fighters themselves armed their smart bombs and radar-seekers and began to bomb the remnant Allied air-defenses ferociously, with a number of bombs instead striking the jammers specifically set up by the Allies to prevent Kalunda from communicating with anything in orbit.
Just as it looked like the fight was about to end, the 294th spotted an incoming flight of Gilean bombers and fighters. From his seat, Squadron Leader Michael Long gave a short laugh and, with his Queen's English accent, gave the order for the squadron to engage. He pulled back on his flight stick and gained altitude to face off against the Gilean atmospheric jets. They were sleek, probably lighter than his craft and capable of tighter maneuvers without having the added mass and size from a built-in warp drive, but he had experience and state-of-the-art technology on his side.
Major Oliver Nuten noticed the contacts on his radar as the AF-19 Thunderstrike fighter he was piloting approached Kalunda. "We've got contacts above Kalunda not registering under our IFF list," he said. "HQ, please advise."
He was answered by static.
"I don't like this. All fighters, prepare for combat. Lock on missiles and fire, we'll buy the bombers time to fulfill their missions." With that, Nuten locked his long-range anti-fighter missiles, called Stingrays, on the aircraft flying toward him and over the ruins of besieged Kalunda. His computers managed two hard locks on two different fighters and he fired without waiting, anticipating his pilots to join them in the attack.
Warning chirps in his helmet's audio system told Long he was being targeted, and when it became a solid noise it confirmed a missile was inbound for him. He fired his afterburners and jinked away, his squadron breaking off to evade and to re-engage in individual flights and even pairs.
The missile after him was well-designed for atmospheric combat, but again the F-45 was equipped to shake off just such missiles. Long fired off some chaff and flares to trick the missile and twisted away, the G-forces tugging at him as he pulled back into line with the Gilean fighters and bombers coming toward Kalunda. He made sure to prioritize the bombers with a single button press on his targeting computer and waited for his AIM-304s to get a solid target lock.
They did, a moment later, just after he confirmed a renewed missile lock. His thumb pressed down on the missile trigger of his flight stick and sent four of his eight AIM-304s flying.
The Gilean tac-bombers saw the missiles coming in and tried to evade, but they were bigger, slower, less maneuverable.... and up against the latest in Alliance technology. Again the equation of experience and technology told against the Gileans when all of the missiles impacted. Two bombers simply disappeared in fireballs, only one of the crew for each managing to eject in time. The other two bombers were slightly luckier, taking "glancing" hits that merely blew off a wing and sent them spiraling out of control.
Long jinked hard, pulling his fighter into a tight curve and then shooting downward, giving his anti-missile systems a clear shot. Particle streams lashed out again and the anti-fighter missile coming after him blew up in mid-air. "All right, that's enough of this, mates. We're No. 3 Squadron! We shot down Jerry's bombers and won the Battle of Britain, I'm not gonna let these flunkies of a two-bit dictator make fools of us!"
Pulling up, Long found a Gilean fighter in his sights and turned to follow. Keeping in mind that the Gilean AF-19 was a bit more nimble than his F-45, Long kept a bit of distance and twisted and pulled at his stick to try and get a lock for his weapons, the range far too close for his few remaining AAM missiles.
Nuten had never realized just how deep Gilead was in it until he saw the missiles simply fail to take down any of the enemy. These weren't standard jets, and he'd have to be awfully damned good to bring any of them down with what he had.
And he, frankly, knew he wasn't up to that level.
All that was left was to survive, and so Nuten tried desperately to use his lighter craft to evade the Alliance fighters. His wingman, Captain Natalie Lawton, was trying to get onto the jet trailing him, buts he was also in trouble, being trailed by an Alliance fighter.
Nuten twisted, hoping maybe to get some shots off at the jet trying to get Lawton so she could clear his six, but just as he began to target Lawton's pursuer two streams of orange-tinted ruby energy struck out from the Alliance jet's front and speared Lawton's AF-19. She screamed, "I'm punching out!" and as the AF-19 blew apart he saw her ejection seat drift downward.
Nevertheless he targeted the jet who had shot Lawton down, determined to get at least one kill.
Long was happy to see Flying Officer Townsend succeed, but also knew that the rusty-haired Liverpooler was in danger as long as the Gilean stayed on him. Long reached for his cannon selector and brought up the twin nuclear-disruptor cannons, with their twenty-degree off-axis firing ability, and continued to maneuver tightly to get the Gilean in his sights. The indicator kept slipping around the Gilean jet, taunting him, taunting him with it's refusal to turn red and lock on...
Townsend twisted hard and plunged toward Kalunda, prompting the Gilean and thus Long to do the same. They were over the ruins of the Kalundan Royal Palace when Townsend straightened up and flew level over it, the Gilean soon mimicing the maneuver. Fortunately, this also kept him unmoving for the moment Long needed. The indicator on his HUD slipped over the Gilean AF-19 and turned red, the buzz in his audio systems telling Long that he had a solid shot. He pulled the index finger trigger and watched two solid beams of nuclear-disruptor energy lash out and cut into the unshielded Gilean fighter. Fire erupted from it's engines. Before the pilot could eject the entire craft exploded from the fatally-good shot that Long had given it. Long shouted, "That's a kill!" into the radio and gained altitude to rejoin the aerial fray above them.
Nuten's death and the early demise of the bombers to the missiles from Long's squadron had completely demoralized the Gilean fighters, and most were just trying to break away as Long and his squadron relentlessly pursued them. It was a most unfair fight; the Gileans were in decades-old atmospheric craft without deflector shields and with old missiles too easily spoofed or destroyed by the anti-missile systems on the Alliance fighters. The F-45s, however, were top of the line aerospace fighters from one of the most technological-advanced societies in the Multiverse, piloted by experienced war veterans, and their peformance and weaponry showed both.
Again, it simply wasn't fair.
But when it came down to it, Long didn't give a damn, and he laughed heartily when a missile from Pilot Officer Tammy Wellington brought the last Gilean AF-19 down for good. Another victory for the squadron over an idiotic enemy, one that had been helping a bunch of rapists and fanatics attack a decent, civilized people. As far as he was concerned, they all got what they deserved.
Long looked back as his squadron made one last turn over the general region of Kalunda to begin atmospheric exit. Smoke rose from the ground, where they'd pounded the primitives but good. With the entire squadron behind him in formation Long purposely flew over the city of Kalunda, while he boosted the gain on his radio and broadcast a general message, strong enough to break through what was left of the local jamming. "Hullo, Kalunda! This is Squadron Leader Michael Long, 294th Fighter Squadron of the Allied Nations Aerospace Force, but we're better known as No. 3 Squadron of Her Majesty's Royal Air Force. Thought you'd like to know that rescue is comin' soon, cheerio! And to any of you cheeky primitivist rapist bastards listenin' in too, you can all kiss my hairy English arse!"
"Did you have to do the 'cheerio' bit, Sir?" a Londoner voice asked over the squadron radio.
"Why not?" was Long's cheerful reply as the F-45 Spitfire IIs roared out over the ocean and up to orbit.
Cranstonville
Within the Gilean Planetary Defense Bunker, the reports had left Covington bewildered and enraged. The minefield was being swept away and the Gilean Air Force, the one thing that might have ensured the fall of Kalunda before the invaders arrived, was now out of commission. He had nothing to ensure the damned city of traitors fell before it could be relieved. Nothing to ensure that a victory over Kalunda could be used to rally the peoples of the Confederacy to heroic resistance against the invasion.
His only hope, now, was to buy more time for the fall of Kalunda to be achieved by what the primitivists had left. And that meant using the fleet, even though those damned New Frieslanders had yet to honor their commitments to the Confederacy and send their fleet to his aid.
Most of the planet's communications network was gone, but the air strikes hadn't yet hit underground transmitters that allowed for him to establish a tachyon-based channel to the fleet hiding near the sun. Admiral Krueger appeared on his screen, static and fuzz showing the interference of the Gilean sun. "Admiral, we have no choice. We cannot wait for the fleet under New Frieslander control to arrive and place our enemies between two fires. You must launch now and destroy their minesweepers."
"Gen.... Mister President, we don't have enough firepower...."
"You'll have to make it work anyway. Dammit, we just lost the Air Force and they're turning our planetary defenses and communications into rubble! You must strike now and take out the minesweepers before they can get through and start landing troops!" Covington pointed a trembling finger at the screen. "That's a direct order, and if you can't follow it I'll find someone in your fleet who can!"
Krueger nodded and grimly replied, "We'll give it our all, Mister President. Krueger out."
Covington saw Krueger's image disappear and turned back to his digital display of Gilead, where the damage to the planetary C&C network and airfields was showing everywhere. He had gambled and he had, apparently, failed. But he wouldn't let it end like this, no.... he would become the leader of the Gilean Confederacy, an independent Confederacy, and he'd drive these meddlers out for good.
Either that, or he would die.... and he'd bring with him to the grave as many of the bastards - on their side and on his - as he could.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Written by Marina
DAY 47
Gilead Orbit.
Rear Admiral Halsina, the Marchioness of Sapai, presided over an execution rather than a battle. She knew that this was what her task had to be. Yet at the same time there was a certain nobility in it, and so she did not regret it. After all, the fleet of the old Confederacy had to get off its show of honour before the end of the whole nation. The capitol was being attacked. A last effort was demanded; and as a noblewoman she recognized this reluctant sacrifice on the part of the enemy. It was a battle for the honour of the flag, and the honour of the service to which the men fighting belonged. Glory could be the only gain.
Sixty-one ships stood out from solar orbit and moved to close with the international armada. Two dreadnoughts led the pack; ten small area-defence battleships followed them and behind them in turn were five heavy cruisers, twelve light cruisers, and sixteen each destroyers and patrol corvettes. From the distant orbital platforms a muster of two hundred and seventy elderly aerospace fighters was put together to provide their support, and seventeen armed privateers—pirate ships which had harboured in Gilead, in reality—closed in with the formation to join the desperate struggle knowing that capture in flight would mean execution, but if they fought bravely here the commander of the force might demand they be treated as POWs since they'd fought under his chain of command.
They faced twenty-five dreadnoughts alone, along with sixteen similar escort battleships in all, four battlecruisers, thirty-four heavy cruisers, fourty-one light cruisers, and two hundred and twenty destroyers, frigates and corvettes. Behind that force were the many light carriers, and the Alliance heavy ones, which allowed Halsina to devote at once a reserve of three hundred and eighty-four starfighters to an attack on the enemy fleet per the plan she'd largely orchestrated.
“Admiral MacCallister?” She spoke up politely. “The enemy is moving forward on a standard intercept course. Not toward us but to cut through into the minefield. May I send the starfighter reserve forward to draw off their own fighter escort?”
“Quick on the launch, are we, Halsina?” MacCallister smiled slightly, at the Taloran noble's requesting the first counterstroke at the same moment of the news. “Well, we've got them headed where we want them. Go ahead.”
“Of course, Admiral. The fighters will be sent forward at once...”
“What do you think they're aiming to do?”
Halsina paused for a moment, and framed the answer carefully, but honestly. “They're shaping a course, Admiral, to come inside the minefield. They appear to hope to gain support from its interference, and probably from anti-ship missiles launches from the surface. Clearly they're only planning to engage the fighters and the minesweepers and try and use the cover of the planetary defences to avoid a direct engagement.”
“And then they'll be trapped against the planet, where we can annihilate them in a general fleet action, too...” MacCallister mused aloud. “I'm of a mind to let them through and then close the door behind them. What are your thoughts?”
Halsina knew it was possible. But she also thought there was little honour in such an act; it would be sufficient in this situation to defeat the enemy fleet. And there was a small risk extant, anyway... “We might lose some of the minesweepers and delay the landings if they press an especially fanatical defence, Admiral, or else if they have well-coordinated heavy fire support from the surface. We're not sure of how concentrated the Gilean missile submarines are at the moment.”
“We can easily cross their T if we don't let them through. They can't hope to maneouvre to get the jump on us and keep that from happening, from that far out in the system, and no matter how much velocity they come in with. But if they draw us away from this side of the planet, then the surface missile batteries can engage the minesweepers without our CIWS to protect them...”
“What about bringing just the Dreadnoughts around, Admiral? There'd be plenty of point-defence left to cover the minesweepers, then, but our artillery could repulse the whole force.”
“There'd be some risk of massed torpedo attack by the lights in that case...”
“Use our bombers—we've got a hundred ready to go, Admiral—to attack their destroyers? They have less point-defence, though they're smaller and more manoeuvrable targets to be sure, but if we disperse them under that threat they'll be no harm until after we've dealt with the heavy ships and can turn our guns on the survivors.”
As MacCallister thought about the merits of Halsina's proposals, the fighter force closed rapidly with the enemy. To meet this, Krueger dispatched his own fighters to engage the Alliance ones, allowing for a clear approach of his fleet to the surface, though it essentially doomed the old aerospace fighters.
At last the commanding Admiral made up her mind. “We'll do it, Halsina. But with a small modification.”
“Admiral?”
“You're surely aware of the fact that they'll probably try and escape rather quickly; their heart isn't in this.”
MacCallister had a bit of a sly look, and Halsina realized that part of her hidden, inner motivation had been found out. She nearly flushed with embarassment and her skin was left tinted a very faint gray-green. “Ah, yes, Admiral.”
“Well, let us not bother with the attack on their light; I think that bringing along the battlecruisers will be sufficient for that and not reduce the point-defence here by all that much. Instead we'll send the bombers around to their rear and when they make to run the challenge of running through a gauntlet will compel most of them to surrender, and we can hit hard the ones that can't. What do you think?”
Well, it gives them a chance, Halsina mused for a moment, and knew what her position was, anyway. There were no genuinely valid objections to be made to the plan. “It'll work fine, Admiral. I can do the positioning for the forces immediately.”
“Then let's get to it!”
Now the aerospace fighters of the Gileans engaged the international fighter force sent against them. Halsina scarcely paid attention to the short and brutal battle. Of two hundred and seventy Gilean fighters engaged, two hundred and fifty-four were destroyed in a twenty minute clash while the fleets manoeuvred. Only sixteen escaped. The international force lost eleven fighters. It was a short and sharp turkey shoot, mostly conducted by missile fire at ranges where the primitive Gilean craft could scarcely reply at all, let alone effectually.
With the fighters intact and with plenty of fuel available, MacCallister called them in to provide additional screening for the dreadnought/battlecruiser force now being detached from the main fleet. This will guarantee their light doesn't pose a threat, then, and leave the bombers to better work, though I know Halsina thinks it a bit unchivalrous to cut off their line of retreat...
“It's time, Admiral,” Halsina gently interrupted MacCallister's musings, her heart excited with the prospects. Here she was having a critical role in guiding a major fleet action..
“Bring the detached group around the planet, Halsina. Sling-shot trajectory and then hard breaking. Maintain a wall formation with the battlecruisers aft and one-tenth light second port.”
“Understood.” Halsina sent in the input, dispatched the last group of figures, and the fleet swung into action. Twenty-nine ships moved to meet the Gilean force, supported by more than three hundred and sixty fighters.
Admiral Krueger caught the manoeuvre from sensor relays on the planet's surface. “It's our last, best chance to take on the rest of their fleet with the missile forces on the surface. Advise Commodore Regarus to began the attack immediately. We'll try to cut inside their course and engage them to the stern before slipping into the minefield, gentlemen..” In his heart, he knew it wouldn't be enough, but they had to try their hardest anyway.
Accordingly the Gilean fleet shifted course, beginning to close with the Dreadnought Wall of the international forces, and presenting a real chance of sliding behind them and after a brief engagement, suffering fire en passant, succeeding in getting behind the minefield. Unfortunately they could not do much to hide the fact that they were attempting this from the powerful sensors of the massed line ships.
“They're coming in behind us, Halsina,” MacCallister observed tightly. “We need to slow down the evolution. Widen the parabolic.”
“I'll open it up to six-point-four arcseconds with your permission Admiral..?”
MacCallister trusted Halsina at this point, and didn't even need to do the math in her own head. “Do it.”
“Sending fleet signals to widen the parabolic..”
As the force slowed, the firing cones of the missile batteries on the massive dreadnoughts converged on the enemy fleet until the flashing of target control computers alerted the battery directors that they had the range. The reports filtered up to Halsina, and with them, the requests of the divisional commanders...
“We have the range, Admiral. Do the divisions have permission to engage missile fire by division against the enemy?”
“Granted. Fire by division, missiles and guns free; commence as soon as the range is had. The battlecruisers and fighter squadrons are to stand ready to come in when the enemy light closes.”
“I'll confirm it, Admiral.” Everything was working out well... And then the missile batteries began to fire. Salvoes of a hundred or two hundred or more missiles from each of the dreadnoughts tore through space, accelerating toward their targets. Both of the enemy dreadnoughts and six of the ten battleships are engaged; the two dreadnoughts by four each, as one battleship, the rest of the battleships by three or two dreadnoughts depending on the size of the national contingent.
Each group of missiles was somewhat different, and the result was that coordination between the fleet groups was utterly impossible. The spreads of missiles converged on their targets and were quickly engulfed in a mass of defensive fire, incoming anti-missiles and then point-defence trying to take them on. Space was filled with massive white-hot energetic blasts as missiles were hit and sympathetically detonated, entirely obscuring the enemy fleet on sensors for periods of a few miliseconds at a time. More salvoes followed them in.
Against one comparable ship the Dreadnoughts of the Gilean fleet would have held up superbly. Against four, they were on the verge of being overwhelmed right from the start. The four-ship Slavian division firing at one of the battleships had it even better. Their target appeared out of the mass of the blasts and disappeared into them again, already heavily damaged, its shields unable to repel the mass of heavy blasts detonating right against them, energy from the explosions piercing to melt vicious gouges in the hull.
The Gilean fleet was moving at high speed and their velocity was only slowly decreasing as they tried to get in close to the planet before retrothrusting hard. This meant, however, that they were now rapidly approaching energy range even as the vigorous missile fire began to tell.
Their own fire was reasonably concentrated, and the missile defence of the dreadnought force was haphazard thanks to the lack of coordination between the different technology bases of the various ships. Though all of the CON-5 ships could coordinate reasonably well, the Habsburg, Taloran, and Alliance ships could coordinate only at the divisional level and naturally attracted a sustained fire. Each of those divisions was taking, however, equal or even less missile fire than its own potential, and this was well within the ability of such vast ships of the wall to handle for sustained periods of time.
Aboard the Condoleeza Rice the tremors in the hull from direct missile strikes were noticeable, but there was nothing more than shock damage. The enemy battleship that the Alliance division was firing at, however, was evidencing numerous shield breakthroughs and general energy depletion of her shields. Then a vast brilliance of light obscured the whole screen.
“What's lit off?” MacCallister demanded.
“Sensors are blinded... But the Slavian divisional COS is reporting that the event took place at the location of their target. The massed missile fire of four modern dreadnoughts must surely have been sufficient to catastrophically destroy an old planetary defence ship.”
The missiles cut through the hard radiation sleeting through space and reacquired their targets, giving the Gilean force only the slightest of respites for the loss of one of their comrades. A moment later the estimate was proved correct, and the Slavian division shifted fire to one of the unengaged battleships.
A redoubled and desperate intensity from the Gileans carried the unequal contest for a while longer, but then energy range was gained. All of the Gilean heavies which had been taken under fire showed enormous damage already, and the powerful high-energy weapons of the fleet, from the massive grasers of the Habsburg dreadnoughts to the turreted particle bolt cannons of their Taloran counterparts swung into action. With authorization pre-cleared, they simply commenced to firing by division.
The great Taloran particle bolt cannon energized and shot at a speed slightly below light a charged shot of highly energetic particles, the light of their passage blinding to anyone looking at the window of one of the great ships, thirty-six such massive cannon on each of the three ships bringing 108 bolts converging on their target, which was entirely absorbed in a brilliant glow of high energy radiating of its shields which violently collapsed at once, already so heavily battered by the missile fire.
Converging graser beams from the Habsburg ships against their target with such impetuous intensity that even though the shields were not lost they were punched through right forward with enough power to carry the energy deep into the targeted ship, wrecking it as thoroughly as an old sailing ship raked through stern to stem by a broadside of heavy carronades at point-blank, intact but utterly crippled.
The Alliance railgun rounds were slower to reach their targets but just as destructive, their warheads pumping in heavy-missile range energies to mission-kill another battleship with its sensor arrays utterly destroyed. The results were broadly the same for every division. And all of them recycled and fired again within five seconds.
Amazingly most of the sturdy old Gilean ships stood up to this bombardment. They took it for a minute, and then two minutes of sustained fire, huge gaping wounds blasted in the hulls of every single one that was still under power, but more and more being crippled, save for their own two massive dreadnoughts, the only ships which proved resilient enough to be truly fighting back instead of just soaking up damage. These, drifting toward the planet, swung their broadsides to the enemy and fought back hard against the Hispanian and British divisions engaging them respectively, concentrating on a single ship each and doing some real damage.
In doing so, however, Krueger had aceded to the brutal reality of their utter failure and imminent destruction. With the dreadnoughts fighting back hard, he ordered the force's heavy ships to extricate themselves. Only three of the battleships—those which had been unengaged earlier in the fight--as well as the dreadnoughts were able to heed the call, quickly deaccelerating to a halt and then painfully accelerating back up, all the while under fire, the two dreadnoughts following them.
As for the light ships, well, Krueger had seen the obvious forlorn hope there, and sent them charging in to point-blank range with their short range, high acceleration, high power torpedo batteries ready to fire. MacCallister immediately called in the Habsburg battlecruiser division, which laid down a heavy fire on them while the fighters raced in to distract them and engage them with their heavier missiles. Of their number, three had already been destroyed by the crossfire.
Now, the Taloran, Habsburg, and Alliance divisions each took one of the fleeing battleships under fire, while all of the native divisions which could do so concentrated on a single one of the dreadnoughts, Krueger's flagship as it happened. Four massed salvoes from sixteen dreadnoughts tore through her and crippled her utterly, every single one of the engines knocked out and the main reactor SCRAMmed by the surviving third engineer just in time to avoid a catastrophic failure.
Krueger himself in the well-protected flagbridge survived, but the ship's captain and her conn did not, and two-thirds of the crew was killed outright. They still had communications, though, and Krueger knew that now there was only one thing to do, the moral duty to his sailors. Yet a vague hope compelled him to wait and see the outcome of the torpedo strikes.
It didn't take long. The fighters slashing in against the lights diverted them from their main targets and did sensor damage which sent the torpedoes of some of the craft off in wild directions. The big guns and secondaries of the dreadnoughts were now shifted to the light craft generally, leaving the dreadnought and three battleships, all extremely heavily damaged, limping away from the field.
The battlecruisers had already crippled two of the Gilean heavy cruisers, and another was blown up outright the moment the Condoleeza Rice's guns were turned on her. Dozens of losses quickly wracked up, even as the fighters suffered heavily this time, too: Fifty-two of them were destroyed in the attacks.
In recompense a few of the torpedo spreads got off straight and true. One of the Slavian dreadnoughts, one Taloran, and one French took it hard from solid spreads, whereas all but one or two of the others were intercepted and easily absorbed by the shields, even of the damaged Hispanian and British ships. The high-powered torpedoes in mass proved able to temporarily short out the shields of the three vessels they got clear to and black scoring on the hulls attested to armour fried and melted by the overblast of their impacts on the shields, but no guns or power was lost and the casualties were light.
Now the light ships tried to cut through the fleet and get safely into the minefield. Under constant fire the whole while more and more of them were destroyed or crippled. In the end only fourteen lights got into the protective cover of the minefield and headed toward close orbit of the planet, out of the range of the big guns of the international fleet. Another eight broke off and managed to get out in various directions spaceward; the rest, however, were crippled or destroyed.
Krueger thought that the three battleships and the one dreadnought still moving out might at last get clear, but the torpedo bombers now came in even as the long-range missile fire was commenced from the dreadnoughts at their sterns once more. A heavy fire was directed against them, but they had come in fast and at a bad angle and only thirteen were destroyed. The second dreadnought was caught between these fires and badly mauled, engine power temporarily lost, the Captain—a native of Quanzhi--promptly broadcasting a surrender independently, more prudent than Krueger's own desperation as his ship began to drift with the damage. Power might have been restored, but more missile salvoes would have been on the way while it was gone.
The rest of the torpedoes from the bombers and the combined missile salvo from the dreadnoughts were concentrated at a single battleship to break through the combined point-defence of the battered remnants fleeing in unison. It proved bloody overkill; the heavily damaged battleship, like the Slavian one taken under fire earlier, exploded at once and surely all but a few lucky survivors in the large chunks of the hull left, were killed outright.
Now coasting out of missile range of the dreadnoughts and with the torpedo bombers having expended their payloads, the two remaining battleships accelerated clear, vengefully firing heavy missiles on proximity fusing at the torpedo bombers. Of her own cognizance, Halsina ordered them to scatter, but eight were nonetheless destroyed by the proximity fused missiles. The battle was thus finished, and Krueger formalized his surrender.
For the cost of sixty-three fighters and twenty-one bombers destroyed, and very light damage to five dreadnoughts, with eighty-seven personnel in all killed and two hundred and six wounded, the international force had destroyed the Gilean navy entirely: Two battleships destroyed, six battleships captured, two dreadnoughts captured, and of sixty-six lights and privateers engaged, only twenty-two escaping destruction or surrender, with a force of 270 fighters losing all but sixteen of their number, and the deaths probably in the tens of thousands.
While the battle had waged, the anti-ship missiles of the Gilean submarine force had been expended in a series of massive salvoes, which had succeeded in crippling two destroyers of the international force—one Habsburg and one Alliance—the only ships heavily damaged in the international forces in the whole operation. They had protected the minesweepers, however, and the missiles had been fully expended; they would not be a threat to the landings planned in what was now somewhat more than thirty-six hours.
Krueger had a last request, which MacCallister naturally wrote off, and Halsina dutifully implemented. Most of the cripples of his fleet were drifting out of control directly toward the planet at speeds which could make them cause serious damage to Gilead if they struck the surface, and the dreadnoughts spent the next hour towing them out into secure solar orbits far from the battlefield.
All in all from the first firing of the missiles to the conclusion of the towing, the engagement had taken only approximately two hours. MacCallister got up and stretched, walking over to her Chief of Staff with a smile.
“Halsina?”
“Admiral?” She turned attentively, ears shifting to focus in, and only then becoming self-conscious of the cold sweat which had engulfed her body since the start of the fight. But she realized from the hankerchief twisted tightly between MacCallister's hands that it was very much shared, and she was rather relieved.
“I'd like you to go over to Krueger's flagship and take charge of the distribution of prize crews and repair parties to all of the prizes, and to formally receive his surrender. I understand your people.. Consider such formalities important.” She smiled slightly. “We did not win a small victory here, at all.. Though I admit it was sharp and one-sided, now the way is clear for the relief of Kalunda.”
“Quite so, Admiral.” A pause, for the Taloran was flustered now. “And thank you again for the opportunity. It was a pleasure to fight under your command... And you've giving me a great honour to go over there and receive Admiral Krueger's sword. I won't forget it.”
Back to formalism for them: “Then let's be on with this.” They exchanged salutes, and a relieved MacCallister turned the direction of the fleet over Admiral Yamashita, the commander of CVBG-19, temporarily, so that she could return to her cabin and collapse into an exhausted sleep. For all the battle had simply become a bloody execution, the stress relief on its conclusion was immense.
Halsina, of course, did not have such a pleasure. Surrounded by ADN Marines as guards she went aboard Krueger's flagship, the Parrhesia, and received his surrender. He was a broken man, and as he presented his sword to the alien noblewoman she had immediate pity on him, even with her nose and eyes badly irritated by the corrosive smoke engulfing the ship.
“You did a good work, so badly outnumbered, Admiral Krueger, and do not think you will be punished for an honourable resistance. Your surrender was the only option at that point; your chances were gone and your honour satisfied. Your fleet fought bravely and upheld its duty as far as it could. Please...” She handed back the scabbard. “You may keep your sword.”
With a smile and weary smile, Krueger took it back. “Your Ladyship, will these marines..” He gestured. “Help those of left in the burial of our comrades?”
“I will see to it, Admiral. We will make sure no bodies are disrespected on any of the ships taken, you have my word of honour.”
“Then you have given me more than enough. Please, take my quarters as your own, Your Ladyship.”
With a slight smile at the second such act of human hospitality in a few days, Halsina was at last able to arrange her own repose, flying the flag of a Taloran Rear Admiral of the Green from the shattered hull of a conquered dreadnought. It was a suitable image for the media back home; for her, at the moment, it was just a comfortable bed. The next day would demand much, much more activity from them all.
DAY 47
Gilead Orbit.
Rear Admiral Halsina, the Marchioness of Sapai, presided over an execution rather than a battle. She knew that this was what her task had to be. Yet at the same time there was a certain nobility in it, and so she did not regret it. After all, the fleet of the old Confederacy had to get off its show of honour before the end of the whole nation. The capitol was being attacked. A last effort was demanded; and as a noblewoman she recognized this reluctant sacrifice on the part of the enemy. It was a battle for the honour of the flag, and the honour of the service to which the men fighting belonged. Glory could be the only gain.
Sixty-one ships stood out from solar orbit and moved to close with the international armada. Two dreadnoughts led the pack; ten small area-defence battleships followed them and behind them in turn were five heavy cruisers, twelve light cruisers, and sixteen each destroyers and patrol corvettes. From the distant orbital platforms a muster of two hundred and seventy elderly aerospace fighters was put together to provide their support, and seventeen armed privateers—pirate ships which had harboured in Gilead, in reality—closed in with the formation to join the desperate struggle knowing that capture in flight would mean execution, but if they fought bravely here the commander of the force might demand they be treated as POWs since they'd fought under his chain of command.
They faced twenty-five dreadnoughts alone, along with sixteen similar escort battleships in all, four battlecruisers, thirty-four heavy cruisers, fourty-one light cruisers, and two hundred and twenty destroyers, frigates and corvettes. Behind that force were the many light carriers, and the Alliance heavy ones, which allowed Halsina to devote at once a reserve of three hundred and eighty-four starfighters to an attack on the enemy fleet per the plan she'd largely orchestrated.
“Admiral MacCallister?” She spoke up politely. “The enemy is moving forward on a standard intercept course. Not toward us but to cut through into the minefield. May I send the starfighter reserve forward to draw off their own fighter escort?”
“Quick on the launch, are we, Halsina?” MacCallister smiled slightly, at the Taloran noble's requesting the first counterstroke at the same moment of the news. “Well, we've got them headed where we want them. Go ahead.”
“Of course, Admiral. The fighters will be sent forward at once...”
“What do you think they're aiming to do?”
Halsina paused for a moment, and framed the answer carefully, but honestly. “They're shaping a course, Admiral, to come inside the minefield. They appear to hope to gain support from its interference, and probably from anti-ship missiles launches from the surface. Clearly they're only planning to engage the fighters and the minesweepers and try and use the cover of the planetary defences to avoid a direct engagement.”
“And then they'll be trapped against the planet, where we can annihilate them in a general fleet action, too...” MacCallister mused aloud. “I'm of a mind to let them through and then close the door behind them. What are your thoughts?”
Halsina knew it was possible. But she also thought there was little honour in such an act; it would be sufficient in this situation to defeat the enemy fleet. And there was a small risk extant, anyway... “We might lose some of the minesweepers and delay the landings if they press an especially fanatical defence, Admiral, or else if they have well-coordinated heavy fire support from the surface. We're not sure of how concentrated the Gilean missile submarines are at the moment.”
“We can easily cross their T if we don't let them through. They can't hope to maneouvre to get the jump on us and keep that from happening, from that far out in the system, and no matter how much velocity they come in with. But if they draw us away from this side of the planet, then the surface missile batteries can engage the minesweepers without our CIWS to protect them...”
“What about bringing just the Dreadnoughts around, Admiral? There'd be plenty of point-defence left to cover the minesweepers, then, but our artillery could repulse the whole force.”
“There'd be some risk of massed torpedo attack by the lights in that case...”
“Use our bombers—we've got a hundred ready to go, Admiral—to attack their destroyers? They have less point-defence, though they're smaller and more manoeuvrable targets to be sure, but if we disperse them under that threat they'll be no harm until after we've dealt with the heavy ships and can turn our guns on the survivors.”
As MacCallister thought about the merits of Halsina's proposals, the fighter force closed rapidly with the enemy. To meet this, Krueger dispatched his own fighters to engage the Alliance ones, allowing for a clear approach of his fleet to the surface, though it essentially doomed the old aerospace fighters.
At last the commanding Admiral made up her mind. “We'll do it, Halsina. But with a small modification.”
“Admiral?”
“You're surely aware of the fact that they'll probably try and escape rather quickly; their heart isn't in this.”
MacCallister had a bit of a sly look, and Halsina realized that part of her hidden, inner motivation had been found out. She nearly flushed with embarassment and her skin was left tinted a very faint gray-green. “Ah, yes, Admiral.”
“Well, let us not bother with the attack on their light; I think that bringing along the battlecruisers will be sufficient for that and not reduce the point-defence here by all that much. Instead we'll send the bombers around to their rear and when they make to run the challenge of running through a gauntlet will compel most of them to surrender, and we can hit hard the ones that can't. What do you think?”
Well, it gives them a chance, Halsina mused for a moment, and knew what her position was, anyway. There were no genuinely valid objections to be made to the plan. “It'll work fine, Admiral. I can do the positioning for the forces immediately.”
“Then let's get to it!”
Now the aerospace fighters of the Gileans engaged the international fighter force sent against them. Halsina scarcely paid attention to the short and brutal battle. Of two hundred and seventy Gilean fighters engaged, two hundred and fifty-four were destroyed in a twenty minute clash while the fleets manoeuvred. Only sixteen escaped. The international force lost eleven fighters. It was a short and sharp turkey shoot, mostly conducted by missile fire at ranges where the primitive Gilean craft could scarcely reply at all, let alone effectually.
With the fighters intact and with plenty of fuel available, MacCallister called them in to provide additional screening for the dreadnought/battlecruiser force now being detached from the main fleet. This will guarantee their light doesn't pose a threat, then, and leave the bombers to better work, though I know Halsina thinks it a bit unchivalrous to cut off their line of retreat...
“It's time, Admiral,” Halsina gently interrupted MacCallister's musings, her heart excited with the prospects. Here she was having a critical role in guiding a major fleet action..
“Bring the detached group around the planet, Halsina. Sling-shot trajectory and then hard breaking. Maintain a wall formation with the battlecruisers aft and one-tenth light second port.”
“Understood.” Halsina sent in the input, dispatched the last group of figures, and the fleet swung into action. Twenty-nine ships moved to meet the Gilean force, supported by more than three hundred and sixty fighters.
Admiral Krueger caught the manoeuvre from sensor relays on the planet's surface. “It's our last, best chance to take on the rest of their fleet with the missile forces on the surface. Advise Commodore Regarus to began the attack immediately. We'll try to cut inside their course and engage them to the stern before slipping into the minefield, gentlemen..” In his heart, he knew it wouldn't be enough, but they had to try their hardest anyway.
Accordingly the Gilean fleet shifted course, beginning to close with the Dreadnought Wall of the international forces, and presenting a real chance of sliding behind them and after a brief engagement, suffering fire en passant, succeeding in getting behind the minefield. Unfortunately they could not do much to hide the fact that they were attempting this from the powerful sensors of the massed line ships.
“They're coming in behind us, Halsina,” MacCallister observed tightly. “We need to slow down the evolution. Widen the parabolic.”
“I'll open it up to six-point-four arcseconds with your permission Admiral..?”
MacCallister trusted Halsina at this point, and didn't even need to do the math in her own head. “Do it.”
“Sending fleet signals to widen the parabolic..”
As the force slowed, the firing cones of the missile batteries on the massive dreadnoughts converged on the enemy fleet until the flashing of target control computers alerted the battery directors that they had the range. The reports filtered up to Halsina, and with them, the requests of the divisional commanders...
“We have the range, Admiral. Do the divisions have permission to engage missile fire by division against the enemy?”
“Granted. Fire by division, missiles and guns free; commence as soon as the range is had. The battlecruisers and fighter squadrons are to stand ready to come in when the enemy light closes.”
“I'll confirm it, Admiral.” Everything was working out well... And then the missile batteries began to fire. Salvoes of a hundred or two hundred or more missiles from each of the dreadnoughts tore through space, accelerating toward their targets. Both of the enemy dreadnoughts and six of the ten battleships are engaged; the two dreadnoughts by four each, as one battleship, the rest of the battleships by three or two dreadnoughts depending on the size of the national contingent.
Each group of missiles was somewhat different, and the result was that coordination between the fleet groups was utterly impossible. The spreads of missiles converged on their targets and were quickly engulfed in a mass of defensive fire, incoming anti-missiles and then point-defence trying to take them on. Space was filled with massive white-hot energetic blasts as missiles were hit and sympathetically detonated, entirely obscuring the enemy fleet on sensors for periods of a few miliseconds at a time. More salvoes followed them in.
Against one comparable ship the Dreadnoughts of the Gilean fleet would have held up superbly. Against four, they were on the verge of being overwhelmed right from the start. The four-ship Slavian division firing at one of the battleships had it even better. Their target appeared out of the mass of the blasts and disappeared into them again, already heavily damaged, its shields unable to repel the mass of heavy blasts detonating right against them, energy from the explosions piercing to melt vicious gouges in the hull.
The Gilean fleet was moving at high speed and their velocity was only slowly decreasing as they tried to get in close to the planet before retrothrusting hard. This meant, however, that they were now rapidly approaching energy range even as the vigorous missile fire began to tell.
Their own fire was reasonably concentrated, and the missile defence of the dreadnought force was haphazard thanks to the lack of coordination between the different technology bases of the various ships. Though all of the CON-5 ships could coordinate reasonably well, the Habsburg, Taloran, and Alliance ships could coordinate only at the divisional level and naturally attracted a sustained fire. Each of those divisions was taking, however, equal or even less missile fire than its own potential, and this was well within the ability of such vast ships of the wall to handle for sustained periods of time.
Aboard the Condoleeza Rice the tremors in the hull from direct missile strikes were noticeable, but there was nothing more than shock damage. The enemy battleship that the Alliance division was firing at, however, was evidencing numerous shield breakthroughs and general energy depletion of her shields. Then a vast brilliance of light obscured the whole screen.
“What's lit off?” MacCallister demanded.
“Sensors are blinded... But the Slavian divisional COS is reporting that the event took place at the location of their target. The massed missile fire of four modern dreadnoughts must surely have been sufficient to catastrophically destroy an old planetary defence ship.”
The missiles cut through the hard radiation sleeting through space and reacquired their targets, giving the Gilean force only the slightest of respites for the loss of one of their comrades. A moment later the estimate was proved correct, and the Slavian division shifted fire to one of the unengaged battleships.
A redoubled and desperate intensity from the Gileans carried the unequal contest for a while longer, but then energy range was gained. All of the Gilean heavies which had been taken under fire showed enormous damage already, and the powerful high-energy weapons of the fleet, from the massive grasers of the Habsburg dreadnoughts to the turreted particle bolt cannons of their Taloran counterparts swung into action. With authorization pre-cleared, they simply commenced to firing by division.
The great Taloran particle bolt cannon energized and shot at a speed slightly below light a charged shot of highly energetic particles, the light of their passage blinding to anyone looking at the window of one of the great ships, thirty-six such massive cannon on each of the three ships bringing 108 bolts converging on their target, which was entirely absorbed in a brilliant glow of high energy radiating of its shields which violently collapsed at once, already so heavily battered by the missile fire.
Converging graser beams from the Habsburg ships against their target with such impetuous intensity that even though the shields were not lost they were punched through right forward with enough power to carry the energy deep into the targeted ship, wrecking it as thoroughly as an old sailing ship raked through stern to stem by a broadside of heavy carronades at point-blank, intact but utterly crippled.
The Alliance railgun rounds were slower to reach their targets but just as destructive, their warheads pumping in heavy-missile range energies to mission-kill another battleship with its sensor arrays utterly destroyed. The results were broadly the same for every division. And all of them recycled and fired again within five seconds.
Amazingly most of the sturdy old Gilean ships stood up to this bombardment. They took it for a minute, and then two minutes of sustained fire, huge gaping wounds blasted in the hulls of every single one that was still under power, but more and more being crippled, save for their own two massive dreadnoughts, the only ships which proved resilient enough to be truly fighting back instead of just soaking up damage. These, drifting toward the planet, swung their broadsides to the enemy and fought back hard against the Hispanian and British divisions engaging them respectively, concentrating on a single ship each and doing some real damage.
In doing so, however, Krueger had aceded to the brutal reality of their utter failure and imminent destruction. With the dreadnoughts fighting back hard, he ordered the force's heavy ships to extricate themselves. Only three of the battleships—those which had been unengaged earlier in the fight--as well as the dreadnoughts were able to heed the call, quickly deaccelerating to a halt and then painfully accelerating back up, all the while under fire, the two dreadnoughts following them.
As for the light ships, well, Krueger had seen the obvious forlorn hope there, and sent them charging in to point-blank range with their short range, high acceleration, high power torpedo batteries ready to fire. MacCallister immediately called in the Habsburg battlecruiser division, which laid down a heavy fire on them while the fighters raced in to distract them and engage them with their heavier missiles. Of their number, three had already been destroyed by the crossfire.
Now, the Taloran, Habsburg, and Alliance divisions each took one of the fleeing battleships under fire, while all of the native divisions which could do so concentrated on a single one of the dreadnoughts, Krueger's flagship as it happened. Four massed salvoes from sixteen dreadnoughts tore through her and crippled her utterly, every single one of the engines knocked out and the main reactor SCRAMmed by the surviving third engineer just in time to avoid a catastrophic failure.
Krueger himself in the well-protected flagbridge survived, but the ship's captain and her conn did not, and two-thirds of the crew was killed outright. They still had communications, though, and Krueger knew that now there was only one thing to do, the moral duty to his sailors. Yet a vague hope compelled him to wait and see the outcome of the torpedo strikes.
It didn't take long. The fighters slashing in against the lights diverted them from their main targets and did sensor damage which sent the torpedoes of some of the craft off in wild directions. The big guns and secondaries of the dreadnoughts were now shifted to the light craft generally, leaving the dreadnought and three battleships, all extremely heavily damaged, limping away from the field.
The battlecruisers had already crippled two of the Gilean heavy cruisers, and another was blown up outright the moment the Condoleeza Rice's guns were turned on her. Dozens of losses quickly wracked up, even as the fighters suffered heavily this time, too: Fifty-two of them were destroyed in the attacks.
In recompense a few of the torpedo spreads got off straight and true. One of the Slavian dreadnoughts, one Taloran, and one French took it hard from solid spreads, whereas all but one or two of the others were intercepted and easily absorbed by the shields, even of the damaged Hispanian and British ships. The high-powered torpedoes in mass proved able to temporarily short out the shields of the three vessels they got clear to and black scoring on the hulls attested to armour fried and melted by the overblast of their impacts on the shields, but no guns or power was lost and the casualties were light.
Now the light ships tried to cut through the fleet and get safely into the minefield. Under constant fire the whole while more and more of them were destroyed or crippled. In the end only fourteen lights got into the protective cover of the minefield and headed toward close orbit of the planet, out of the range of the big guns of the international fleet. Another eight broke off and managed to get out in various directions spaceward; the rest, however, were crippled or destroyed.
Krueger thought that the three battleships and the one dreadnought still moving out might at last get clear, but the torpedo bombers now came in even as the long-range missile fire was commenced from the dreadnoughts at their sterns once more. A heavy fire was directed against them, but they had come in fast and at a bad angle and only thirteen were destroyed. The second dreadnought was caught between these fires and badly mauled, engine power temporarily lost, the Captain—a native of Quanzhi--promptly broadcasting a surrender independently, more prudent than Krueger's own desperation as his ship began to drift with the damage. Power might have been restored, but more missile salvoes would have been on the way while it was gone.
The rest of the torpedoes from the bombers and the combined missile salvo from the dreadnoughts were concentrated at a single battleship to break through the combined point-defence of the battered remnants fleeing in unison. It proved bloody overkill; the heavily damaged battleship, like the Slavian one taken under fire earlier, exploded at once and surely all but a few lucky survivors in the large chunks of the hull left, were killed outright.
Now coasting out of missile range of the dreadnoughts and with the torpedo bombers having expended their payloads, the two remaining battleships accelerated clear, vengefully firing heavy missiles on proximity fusing at the torpedo bombers. Of her own cognizance, Halsina ordered them to scatter, but eight were nonetheless destroyed by the proximity fused missiles. The battle was thus finished, and Krueger formalized his surrender.
For the cost of sixty-three fighters and twenty-one bombers destroyed, and very light damage to five dreadnoughts, with eighty-seven personnel in all killed and two hundred and six wounded, the international force had destroyed the Gilean navy entirely: Two battleships destroyed, six battleships captured, two dreadnoughts captured, and of sixty-six lights and privateers engaged, only twenty-two escaping destruction or surrender, with a force of 270 fighters losing all but sixteen of their number, and the deaths probably in the tens of thousands.
While the battle had waged, the anti-ship missiles of the Gilean submarine force had been expended in a series of massive salvoes, which had succeeded in crippling two destroyers of the international force—one Habsburg and one Alliance—the only ships heavily damaged in the international forces in the whole operation. They had protected the minesweepers, however, and the missiles had been fully expended; they would not be a threat to the landings planned in what was now somewhat more than thirty-six hours.
Krueger had a last request, which MacCallister naturally wrote off, and Halsina dutifully implemented. Most of the cripples of his fleet were drifting out of control directly toward the planet at speeds which could make them cause serious damage to Gilead if they struck the surface, and the dreadnoughts spent the next hour towing them out into secure solar orbits far from the battlefield.
All in all from the first firing of the missiles to the conclusion of the towing, the engagement had taken only approximately two hours. MacCallister got up and stretched, walking over to her Chief of Staff with a smile.
“Halsina?”
“Admiral?” She turned attentively, ears shifting to focus in, and only then becoming self-conscious of the cold sweat which had engulfed her body since the start of the fight. But she realized from the hankerchief twisted tightly between MacCallister's hands that it was very much shared, and she was rather relieved.
“I'd like you to go over to Krueger's flagship and take charge of the distribution of prize crews and repair parties to all of the prizes, and to formally receive his surrender. I understand your people.. Consider such formalities important.” She smiled slightly. “We did not win a small victory here, at all.. Though I admit it was sharp and one-sided, now the way is clear for the relief of Kalunda.”
“Quite so, Admiral.” A pause, for the Taloran was flustered now. “And thank you again for the opportunity. It was a pleasure to fight under your command... And you've giving me a great honour to go over there and receive Admiral Krueger's sword. I won't forget it.”
Back to formalism for them: “Then let's be on with this.” They exchanged salutes, and a relieved MacCallister turned the direction of the fleet over Admiral Yamashita, the commander of CVBG-19, temporarily, so that she could return to her cabin and collapse into an exhausted sleep. For all the battle had simply become a bloody execution, the stress relief on its conclusion was immense.
Halsina, of course, did not have such a pleasure. Surrounded by ADN Marines as guards she went aboard Krueger's flagship, the Parrhesia, and received his surrender. He was a broken man, and as he presented his sword to the alien noblewoman she had immediate pity on him, even with her nose and eyes badly irritated by the corrosive smoke engulfing the ship.
“You did a good work, so badly outnumbered, Admiral Krueger, and do not think you will be punished for an honourable resistance. Your surrender was the only option at that point; your chances were gone and your honour satisfied. Your fleet fought bravely and upheld its duty as far as it could. Please...” She handed back the scabbard. “You may keep your sword.”
With a smile and weary smile, Krueger took it back. “Your Ladyship, will these marines..” He gestured. “Help those of left in the burial of our comrades?”
“I will see to it, Admiral. We will make sure no bodies are disrespected on any of the ships taken, you have my word of honour.”
“Then you have given me more than enough. Please, take my quarters as your own, Your Ladyship.”
With a slight smile at the second such act of human hospitality in a few days, Halsina was at last able to arrange her own repose, flying the flag of a Taloran Rear Admiral of the Green from the shattered hull of a conquered dreadnought. It was a suitable image for the media back home; for her, at the moment, it was just a comfortable bed. The next day would demand much, much more activity from them all.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Post by Marina.
DAY 47
KALUNDA.
The flag of the Kingdom still flew broadly and proudly from the iron rail flagpost afixed to the battered top of the Sackon Warehouse. It was continuously obscured in smoke however, and several large pieces had been blasted out of the warehouse by bombing runs with the heaviest of bombs available to the Gilean Airforce later in the evening the day before. The battalion holding the warehouse had held through it all, though, and now the premier Ar Division was bogged down by that mere battalion, and actually being pulled off the line, because after thirty-six hours of continuous attacks they had abandoned any realistic hope of taking such a strong position without a massive loss of life, and it was cut off.
The reason for that abandonment of the effort was the lost of air support. They would not be getting anymore of that, it was very clear, and instead throughout the day the allied armies around Kalunda had been under sustained air attack, devastating their supply lines. Fortunately in the built-up city the casualties from the international aerospace fighters attacking them had proved light. It was the only reason they were still in the fight, and the leadership of all the allied nations was relieved at the prospect of Erqui's predictions coming true. Getting in close would indeed preserve them from air attack, and so the shattered rubble of the occupied portions of Kalunda became the home of the besieging army.
The War Council of the allies had at least ended on a positive note, with the commander of the Gilean spotters assuring them that, though there would not be anymore air support, the needs of the international forces to support their landings would divert further air attacks from the allies once the landings had begun. With any luck they would only have to spend thirty-six hours under air attack like this, themselves.
The Gilean Airforce spotters were not sure whether or not they were telling the turth to their nominal allies, but they were following orders, and that was that. They had to make sure that the primitives did their absolute best to reduce the city. All other efforts were being made at the same time to concentrate on this goal, and the Cartagenean Corps would have been ordered forward but for the fact that if it manoeuvred out in the open of the primitive zone rather than in prepared defences around East Port with its missile launchers on continuous alert, it would be to vulnerable against modern aerospace craft and quite possibly destroyed by sustained attack. Stationary, it could at least block the most practical route of advance to the city, and its attached missiles could command a further range around it.
At least there had been sustained progress made toward the reduction of the south bank of the city proper. No less than 80% of the land surface of the south bank walled city was in allied hands now. Only the blocks closest to the river Kalunda were still in the hands of the Kalundan defenders. Their push had been inexorable and their effort grim and determined in the face of the threat overhead. Aided by the aircraft of the Gilean Air Force they had gone from victory to victory, clearing block after block, at a very stiff cost but still victoriously.
Then the air support had been removed, and the air attacks against them by the international forces had begun at once. At the same time the Kalundan defenders had received word of the relief effort, and celebrations had broken out in every quarter of the city, while the defensive effort of the troops was redoubled. The attacks immediately stalled, and remained that way throughout the day. What remained omnipresent, advancing or in stalemate, was the acrid smoke of the countless uncontrolled fires which burned at many points in the rubble, with the suburbs further south which had been previously occupied by the allies with little fighting now also fully engulfed as the houses, used as supply points and resting and medical stations for the allied forces, were set alight by cluster munitions. It was all quite legal; after all, the Normans, Amazonians, Stirlins, al-Farani, et. al., had never signed any conventions of international war, and so the Council of War of the international force came down decisively on the side of general attacks as a salutory lesson against their barbarism, with little dissension, and all aware of the urgency.
As for the remains of the industrial district, the defending Kalundan composite corps still held out on the Industrial Quay, with heavy fighting over the first warehouse on the quay, of which the attacking Stirlin troops had seized only about half. Their position was good, and the news of the impending relief worked equal wonders on their morale.
In the command positions of the city, however, everything remained a crisis. Major Ewing had proved able as Sarina's Chief of Staff, but the woman was clearly struggling with the task of organizing the defence, and Ewing didn't have experience with controlling the scale of the forces involved, yet there was no unwounded foreigner superiour to him. With Jhayka incapacitated, the situation seemed quite dire.
Until, that is, it became apparent that the reestablishment of communications was permanent, and the equipment of the Slavian consulate, salvaged from the damage to the building, was sufficient for military coding purposes. This led to the meeting which was now arranged between King Julio and Sarina and their erstwhile rescuer. It was a strange meeting with a strange person.
And to Julio and Sarina, the Duchess of Medina was certainly an impressive sight, even over a 2-D communications link. With her full height, ears included, of nearly seven and a half feet, and an incredibly thick mane of bright green hair, like the leaves of a fine blossoming tree in summer, bangs at times obscuring her eyes, and her thoroughly unmilitary and yet puritanically severe black clothes, she struck a figure which impressed even Ilavna, who was standing behind them, and sucked in a slight breath, bowing with respect.
“Your Grace.”
“Ahaaha. Jhayka's personal physician, hmm?” She glanced to Julio. “Apologies, Your Royal Highness, but duty commends itself...” She carefully avoided a slight, without elevating Julio to the style of Majesty, which would be improper, considering her own allegiance to the Majesty of the Great Queen of Lelola Colenta, when treating with a grandiose barbarian chieftan. A look back to the clearly quite nervous Ilavna.
“Your Grace, forgive me, but I am but a medical student, as I have not completed a residency..!”
“Ahaa, so I see.” Frayuia smiled quite vaguely, and then asked: “How.. Is she doing?” The voice betrayed, for the first time, something more than a fop in her, and indeed a breadth of concern for the fate of the Princess.
“She is unconscious, Your Grace, and her condition is serious, but stable. We've done all the repairs to her organs that we can and we're slowly restoring her organs to the duty of keeping her body alive, and ending machine support. The hospital facilities here are fully modern, but the equipment is designed for humans.. And within all of those considerations, I don't expect her to regain consciousness for another three days. All of her injuries except those to her ear will be healed, without complications, about three weeks beyond that; her ear will take another two months beyond that in a cast with tissue grafts held in place to guarantee a full return of flexibility. And of course she will need an artificial left leg from somewhat below the knee.”
“Well, go back to taking care of her, Priestess.” Another vague smile. “Old comrades look after each other... No matter what.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Ilavna bowed deeply and began to leave...
“And how's her girl, anyway, that Danielle?”
Ilavna whirled, a tad surprised, and a tad indignant. “Your Grace! Danielle is an officer and so a lady to be styled, and not any mere courtesean...”
Frayuia frowned but flexed her ears to submit the point. “Ahh, I don't dispute you, Priestess—t'would be quite immoral of me to disagree with your judgements. And regardless of how I made that sound, look out for her, hmm? I shant begrudge old comrades a bit of sin either, if perhaps that is a moral failing..”
“Your morals, Conqueror of Islam, are unimpeachable.” And with another deep bow, Ilavna left.
Julio was deeply interested in the exchange, and the final words surprised him. “Conqueror of Islam, Duchess?”
“Ahaaha, it is a popular style for me, I'll grant. There was this little problem on our Earth, back in the days when I was a Brigadier, with the rabble of Moors in old Araby, where I had this most boring job as the executive officer of the old Division of Jula's Regulars. There were, oh, a few hundred thousand of these enthusiasts who decided to revolt in the name of Allah, and since I figured they ought better be dealt with by a stiff campaign and a bit of desultory punishment, I ended up a bit of a hero. Seems that the sack of the city of Medina was sufficient to render quescient three billion adherents to that faith...
“But don't think to much of it. It was enough to get me my Duchy, I'll grant you, and courtesy titles for my daughters besides; but it was all in a day's work of soldiering, or, ahaah, should I say a week?” The modesty was very clearly feined.
“A week?”
“It didn't take any longer than that to reach Medina, Your Royal Highness.”
Joachim Ewing had a particularly vicious smirk on his face the whole time, and Sarina, certainly, was thinking of the impact herself that such a figure would have upon the al-Farani. But it was Julio's show.
He smiled, and asked her a pointed question: “Then shall I see you within a week, Duchess?”
“Ahaaahah. Who can say, in war...?” She was staring at her own long nails for a moment.. And then her head shot up, ears also, eyes brilliantly intense and serious:
“A week? Yes, yes, I don't think we'll need longer than that. But prepare yourselves for two, just in case. I am not the Sword, to be making absolute predictions of the course of a war, and cause them to be right.”
“Fair enough, Duchess.” Julio hesitated for a moment, not wanting to offend Sarina, but... “Can you in the meantime give us advice for the operation of the defence, since you can observe our positions from orbit, as well as send instructions real-time?”
“Absolutely.” It was just another chore on top of all the others, after all... “Anything else, Your Royal Highness?”
Is she bored? Julio mused for a moment. And rather than pressing in the details of the commander appointed to the relief effort, he gave in, and asked a very personal question.
“How is my bethrothed, the Grand Duchess of Illustrious?”
“Ahaah, the First Grand Duchess of the new regime, Sara Proctor? She led her own relief expedition to the planet.. It's operating in Norman territory. About a company of her Ducal Guard, I'm given to understand, and a bunch of primitive peoples. Something about Zhai and some other such groups. They ran into some trouble, though..”
Julio's heart was still filled with a mixture of anger and happiness that Sara had come when he told her not to. But the last sentence seized him up with fear. “Duchess... What do you mean by a bit of trouble?”
“Ahh, not much. They're still advancing the field, and that will prove useful to my own advance, drawing off the Norman reserves and such. But they were checked, and suffered casualties, even to the Devenshiran forces.... And, I will not shade the truth from you, to Sara herself. But fear not. She is less hurt than our good Jhayka here, and will be up on her feet again and back in operations in a week at most—likely before we've got the enemy cleared from about your city.”
Julio sagged with relief. His anger was, ironically enough, immediately gone, and he simply longed to see his love again, despite and indeed because of all the horrors that had taken place since their last meeting. “Thank you, Duchess, for confirming that she is alive and well. Now, I must ask you, come quickly. My people need the succor you offer.”
“I'll be planetside in thirty hours, Your Royal Highness. Until then, I'll send hourly dispatches on the status of your defence to your headquarters. Best of luck!” And with that the communication abruptly terminated.
DAY 47
KALUNDA.
The flag of the Kingdom still flew broadly and proudly from the iron rail flagpost afixed to the battered top of the Sackon Warehouse. It was continuously obscured in smoke however, and several large pieces had been blasted out of the warehouse by bombing runs with the heaviest of bombs available to the Gilean Airforce later in the evening the day before. The battalion holding the warehouse had held through it all, though, and now the premier Ar Division was bogged down by that mere battalion, and actually being pulled off the line, because after thirty-six hours of continuous attacks they had abandoned any realistic hope of taking such a strong position without a massive loss of life, and it was cut off.
The reason for that abandonment of the effort was the lost of air support. They would not be getting anymore of that, it was very clear, and instead throughout the day the allied armies around Kalunda had been under sustained air attack, devastating their supply lines. Fortunately in the built-up city the casualties from the international aerospace fighters attacking them had proved light. It was the only reason they were still in the fight, and the leadership of all the allied nations was relieved at the prospect of Erqui's predictions coming true. Getting in close would indeed preserve them from air attack, and so the shattered rubble of the occupied portions of Kalunda became the home of the besieging army.
The War Council of the allies had at least ended on a positive note, with the commander of the Gilean spotters assuring them that, though there would not be anymore air support, the needs of the international forces to support their landings would divert further air attacks from the allies once the landings had begun. With any luck they would only have to spend thirty-six hours under air attack like this, themselves.
The Gilean Airforce spotters were not sure whether or not they were telling the turth to their nominal allies, but they were following orders, and that was that. They had to make sure that the primitives did their absolute best to reduce the city. All other efforts were being made at the same time to concentrate on this goal, and the Cartagenean Corps would have been ordered forward but for the fact that if it manoeuvred out in the open of the primitive zone rather than in prepared defences around East Port with its missile launchers on continuous alert, it would be to vulnerable against modern aerospace craft and quite possibly destroyed by sustained attack. Stationary, it could at least block the most practical route of advance to the city, and its attached missiles could command a further range around it.
At least there had been sustained progress made toward the reduction of the south bank of the city proper. No less than 80% of the land surface of the south bank walled city was in allied hands now. Only the blocks closest to the river Kalunda were still in the hands of the Kalundan defenders. Their push had been inexorable and their effort grim and determined in the face of the threat overhead. Aided by the aircraft of the Gilean Air Force they had gone from victory to victory, clearing block after block, at a very stiff cost but still victoriously.
Then the air support had been removed, and the air attacks against them by the international forces had begun at once. At the same time the Kalundan defenders had received word of the relief effort, and celebrations had broken out in every quarter of the city, while the defensive effort of the troops was redoubled. The attacks immediately stalled, and remained that way throughout the day. What remained omnipresent, advancing or in stalemate, was the acrid smoke of the countless uncontrolled fires which burned at many points in the rubble, with the suburbs further south which had been previously occupied by the allies with little fighting now also fully engulfed as the houses, used as supply points and resting and medical stations for the allied forces, were set alight by cluster munitions. It was all quite legal; after all, the Normans, Amazonians, Stirlins, al-Farani, et. al., had never signed any conventions of international war, and so the Council of War of the international force came down decisively on the side of general attacks as a salutory lesson against their barbarism, with little dissension, and all aware of the urgency.
As for the remains of the industrial district, the defending Kalundan composite corps still held out on the Industrial Quay, with heavy fighting over the first warehouse on the quay, of which the attacking Stirlin troops had seized only about half. Their position was good, and the news of the impending relief worked equal wonders on their morale.
In the command positions of the city, however, everything remained a crisis. Major Ewing had proved able as Sarina's Chief of Staff, but the woman was clearly struggling with the task of organizing the defence, and Ewing didn't have experience with controlling the scale of the forces involved, yet there was no unwounded foreigner superiour to him. With Jhayka incapacitated, the situation seemed quite dire.
Until, that is, it became apparent that the reestablishment of communications was permanent, and the equipment of the Slavian consulate, salvaged from the damage to the building, was sufficient for military coding purposes. This led to the meeting which was now arranged between King Julio and Sarina and their erstwhile rescuer. It was a strange meeting with a strange person.
And to Julio and Sarina, the Duchess of Medina was certainly an impressive sight, even over a 2-D communications link. With her full height, ears included, of nearly seven and a half feet, and an incredibly thick mane of bright green hair, like the leaves of a fine blossoming tree in summer, bangs at times obscuring her eyes, and her thoroughly unmilitary and yet puritanically severe black clothes, she struck a figure which impressed even Ilavna, who was standing behind them, and sucked in a slight breath, bowing with respect.
“Your Grace.”
“Ahaaha. Jhayka's personal physician, hmm?” She glanced to Julio. “Apologies, Your Royal Highness, but duty commends itself...” She carefully avoided a slight, without elevating Julio to the style of Majesty, which would be improper, considering her own allegiance to the Majesty of the Great Queen of Lelola Colenta, when treating with a grandiose barbarian chieftan. A look back to the clearly quite nervous Ilavna.
“Your Grace, forgive me, but I am but a medical student, as I have not completed a residency..!”
“Ahaa, so I see.” Frayuia smiled quite vaguely, and then asked: “How.. Is she doing?” The voice betrayed, for the first time, something more than a fop in her, and indeed a breadth of concern for the fate of the Princess.
“She is unconscious, Your Grace, and her condition is serious, but stable. We've done all the repairs to her organs that we can and we're slowly restoring her organs to the duty of keeping her body alive, and ending machine support. The hospital facilities here are fully modern, but the equipment is designed for humans.. And within all of those considerations, I don't expect her to regain consciousness for another three days. All of her injuries except those to her ear will be healed, without complications, about three weeks beyond that; her ear will take another two months beyond that in a cast with tissue grafts held in place to guarantee a full return of flexibility. And of course she will need an artificial left leg from somewhat below the knee.”
“Well, go back to taking care of her, Priestess.” Another vague smile. “Old comrades look after each other... No matter what.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Ilavna bowed deeply and began to leave...
“And how's her girl, anyway, that Danielle?”
Ilavna whirled, a tad surprised, and a tad indignant. “Your Grace! Danielle is an officer and so a lady to be styled, and not any mere courtesean...”
Frayuia frowned but flexed her ears to submit the point. “Ahh, I don't dispute you, Priestess—t'would be quite immoral of me to disagree with your judgements. And regardless of how I made that sound, look out for her, hmm? I shant begrudge old comrades a bit of sin either, if perhaps that is a moral failing..”
“Your morals, Conqueror of Islam, are unimpeachable.” And with another deep bow, Ilavna left.
Julio was deeply interested in the exchange, and the final words surprised him. “Conqueror of Islam, Duchess?”
“Ahaaha, it is a popular style for me, I'll grant. There was this little problem on our Earth, back in the days when I was a Brigadier, with the rabble of Moors in old Araby, where I had this most boring job as the executive officer of the old Division of Jula's Regulars. There were, oh, a few hundred thousand of these enthusiasts who decided to revolt in the name of Allah, and since I figured they ought better be dealt with by a stiff campaign and a bit of desultory punishment, I ended up a bit of a hero. Seems that the sack of the city of Medina was sufficient to render quescient three billion adherents to that faith...
“But don't think to much of it. It was enough to get me my Duchy, I'll grant you, and courtesy titles for my daughters besides; but it was all in a day's work of soldiering, or, ahaah, should I say a week?” The modesty was very clearly feined.
“A week?”
“It didn't take any longer than that to reach Medina, Your Royal Highness.”
Joachim Ewing had a particularly vicious smirk on his face the whole time, and Sarina, certainly, was thinking of the impact herself that such a figure would have upon the al-Farani. But it was Julio's show.
He smiled, and asked her a pointed question: “Then shall I see you within a week, Duchess?”
“Ahaaahah. Who can say, in war...?” She was staring at her own long nails for a moment.. And then her head shot up, ears also, eyes brilliantly intense and serious:
“A week? Yes, yes, I don't think we'll need longer than that. But prepare yourselves for two, just in case. I am not the Sword, to be making absolute predictions of the course of a war, and cause them to be right.”
“Fair enough, Duchess.” Julio hesitated for a moment, not wanting to offend Sarina, but... “Can you in the meantime give us advice for the operation of the defence, since you can observe our positions from orbit, as well as send instructions real-time?”
“Absolutely.” It was just another chore on top of all the others, after all... “Anything else, Your Royal Highness?”
Is she bored? Julio mused for a moment. And rather than pressing in the details of the commander appointed to the relief effort, he gave in, and asked a very personal question.
“How is my bethrothed, the Grand Duchess of Illustrious?”
“Ahaah, the First Grand Duchess of the new regime, Sara Proctor? She led her own relief expedition to the planet.. It's operating in Norman territory. About a company of her Ducal Guard, I'm given to understand, and a bunch of primitive peoples. Something about Zhai and some other such groups. They ran into some trouble, though..”
Julio's heart was still filled with a mixture of anger and happiness that Sara had come when he told her not to. But the last sentence seized him up with fear. “Duchess... What do you mean by a bit of trouble?”
“Ahh, not much. They're still advancing the field, and that will prove useful to my own advance, drawing off the Norman reserves and such. But they were checked, and suffered casualties, even to the Devenshiran forces.... And, I will not shade the truth from you, to Sara herself. But fear not. She is less hurt than our good Jhayka here, and will be up on her feet again and back in operations in a week at most—likely before we've got the enemy cleared from about your city.”
Julio sagged with relief. His anger was, ironically enough, immediately gone, and he simply longed to see his love again, despite and indeed because of all the horrors that had taken place since their last meeting. “Thank you, Duchess, for confirming that she is alive and well. Now, I must ask you, come quickly. My people need the succor you offer.”
“I'll be planetside in thirty hours, Your Royal Highness. Until then, I'll send hourly dispatches on the status of your defence to your headquarters. Best of luck!” And with that the communication abruptly terminated.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Mostly by Marina, save for my small portion at the beginning.
Near the Henley River, Border of Amazon/Norman Territory
DAY 48
The smoke from a burning plantation rose into the air behind the Army of the Valley as it moved on from it's camp for the night. It was the sixth great plantation of the Norman rich that Dao Zhi had taken and burned, and the foodstuffs they had seized from the plantations and from the small villages they had poured through was keeping their march going.
The Norman army that had disintegrated the night outside of Thentis had never reformed; it's components had kept flowing south frantically, leaving a trail of their dying and dead wounded behind them for the Valley Army to march by. Ahead of them was another Norman Army, with a bit more modern weaponry, but also faced against the Amazon bridgehead over the River.
The Gilean sun was still dawning when Captain MacDougal, Major Winston's second, entered the tent where Dao Zhi was preparing with his "staff" to move the headquarters along with the army. He saluted and gave his report: "The scouts have confirmed that we have made it to the river and that the extreme northern flank of the Norman army blocking the Amazon bridgehead is within five miles march."
"That is welcome news indeed," Dao Zhi remarked.
"I have also received a radio message, Your Highness, that the Duchess and her entourage are within half a day's ride."
Dao Zhi was happy to hear that; he had little illusion that he and the Amazons could work well together, and knew that it was Sara that the new Magestrix wanted to deal with. "That is excellent news. Send it down among the men, and make sure the order is given to assume combat formation before we commence march. Then you may consider yourself dismissed from my presence."
MacDougal nodded and left, leaving Dao Zhi to examine one of the detailed maps provided by Sara. Their knowledge of Norman positions was still a little scanty, and he would make sure to leave the left flank strong should a Norman force approach from that direction. But if all went well, his army of riflemen and pike would plow into the right flank of the Normans by the afternoon.
As it turned out, the Normans did not let all go well, but in scarcely an unwelcome fashion. Instead of trying to face the advance of the Zhai-led army, they retired up the rail line through early afternoon, leading to only a few brief skirmishers with the Zhai, and abandoning their blockade of the Amazon force. In short order this Norman defensive position had therefore been abandoned without a fight.
It was a very surprising development, and of course a very welcome one. There was nothing between the combined Zhai-Amazonian Army and the city of Ar, now, except the Heights of Ar themselves, the ridge which flanked the great city on two sides and would, granted, provide a formidable defensive position. Yet at the same time, if it was gained, modern artillery could command the city from the rail-line atop it, as the General Faeria had demonstrated those two months prior.
Dao Zhi realized intuitively that this would be the next, the only, place where the Normans could stand. With their capitol's walls smashed, they could not even defend it against an army like their own in a regular siege. A strong force would have to hold the heights to protect Ar, and this withdraw meant, surely, that the Normans were pulling back all of their remaining troops in their own territory to try and defend their capitol. It was the best news of the whole campaign.
The international forces were coming. Dao Zhi knew this. In absence of further instructions from Sara, it seemed the best course was to maintain an advance toward Ar in conjunction with Leeasa, insomuch as the Magestrix would allow it, and together to pin down the remaining Norman Army on the heights of Ar. Flying columns could then ravage the rest of the Norman Empire essentially at will, and secure their own resupply, while they simply waited for the arrival of the international forces to finish off the great city and lay the Normans low.
Leeasa Avrila herself ordered her armoured train forward to pursue the retreating Normans, and got her Amazons moving at once. They had suffered considerably couped up and besieged in their bridgehead, and now with the chance of freedom of movement she ordered a pursuit and hoped it could be put together fast enough to give them a chance for some blood of their hated enemies.
It was not to be. The Normans were quick about withdrawing, and though the armoured train pursued them fast enough to continuously harry their rearguard, it was unsupported and could not make a significant attack on its own. In the meantime, her efforts of coordination with Sara were unanswered, and Leeasa manoeuvred her army to the far side of the rail line, wary of the Zhai at first.
In the process of these delicate “manoeuvre negotiations” of the two co-belligerents, the Norman Army force was at last able to slip away into the evening. Considering both sides knew that they did not have enough force to gain the Heights of Ar by storm, it was not a great loss, and so the wary exchange of messengers continued until late in the evening Leeasa had confirmed that Sara was arriving soon to handle the negotiations personally—the Zhai army had of course been advancing at the same time Sara was riding, and delayed her arrival accordingly--and ordered her army to camp for the night, having managed, despite mechanization, fifteen kilometres at the very most. The Zhai camped on the opposite side of the rail line from them, and peace reigned for the night.
The next day, Leeasa Avrila would finally meet the hero of the old wars herself.. And probably the greatest advocate she could hope her nation would have in its coming trials, when the international powers would sit in judgement. But before such matters were handled, they must plan their strategy for the despoilment of the Norman Empire, and the checking of the powerful Norman reserve Army which must now be gathering around the city of Ar itself for a last stand, come to it.
DAY 48
Kalunda.
Allied progress had been stalled in gaining the south-bank riverfront for the past twenty-four hours. The houses here were old and wooden, or partially stone and partially wood, and burned easily and were entirely ruins now, they were not sufficient to produce an effective barrier against the strong advance of the massed allied forces. Their assaults had only been held back by air support, in combination with the sensible directives of the Duchess of Medina, whose befuddled personal demeanour was laid bare as a falsehood in the clear and firm orders she proved quite capable of issuing.
The allies had hence become more and more demoralized, and at the daily meeting of the primary commanders they had again debated the process of simply dispersing into the woods, which Erqui opposed as usual. He, among them all, was determined to prove his theories right and gain the victory here.. And Tarl Ikmen was easily swayed on account of his desire for vengeance, through the manipulation of the Warleader. The al-Farani Emir, imbued with an incredible sense of Islamic fatalism, raised no protests, and so the council continued the attacks, out of desperation or resignation or bloody madness, or perhaps all of them together.
What could they do, except keep trying to break through, to complete the plan? They were so close that many of their troops on the front line could see the water of the river from their positions. Except for the pockets of the Quay and the Warehouse in the industrial district, the whole of the south bank would be reduced by just one more stern effort. Then they could redeploy to the relative safety of the north bank with all save a small, sacrificial blocking force, and launch their grand assault on the heart of the old city.
Yet all of this seemed to come to naught, despite their continued resolution, at the renewed resistance of the Kalundans. For those twenty-four hours it was like they had not suffered the massive casualties and losses of ground that they had in the past weeks, which had left them demoralized and battered nearly to the breaking point. It seemed that nothing could allow the allies to prevail, now, yet...
And it was then, late in the day, the sun dipping toward the earth and the sky red and sooty with the smoke of the city, when the resistance of the Kalundans began to slack again, and the allies realized it was so with joy in their hearts. The reason was obvious. They were no longer receiving support from the international aerospace fighters. The Gileans were right, then—the fighters had been drawn off quickly enough for other tasks! Their chance given to them, the allies mustered a redoubled effort and soon the battle for the south bank waxed brilliant in intensity once more, and doubts faded away into the hot blood of combat. They had their last chance, and they proceeded to use it well.
Let us consider what had happened up to this point to the nation of Kalunda: Of the some 500,000 trained personnel that Kalunda had begun the fight with, being 1,000 palace guards, 20,000 Army, 20,000 Crimson Guard, and 20,000 militia cadres, with 440,000 mobilized reserves in all three formations, 290,000 had been killed, wounded, or captured (which usually resulted in death or mutilation), or rendered ineffective due to sickness or mental collapse from the stress of the fighting. Many had also been crippled by their own gas.
To counterbalance this, 50,000 fresh troops had been trained and sent forward in the meanwhile; 2,500 foreigners bolstered the ranks and provided direction and command; and 1,000 each additional foreigners, locals with special training, and international Marine reinforcements had ultimately come to provide a powerful reserve for the whole of the city. The strength of the two battalions had gone from 1,000 at the start of the battle for each, to about 1,450 combined; they had lost more than a quarter of their power armour. 500 of the other foreigners fighting in the city had been killed or wounded or taken prisoner. Of the 50,000 fresh troops, 10,000 had been killed or wounded. The 6,000 naval personnel of the city now formed a short regiment of 2,000, with 2,000 casualties and 2,000 still in service.
In all, there were 23,000 effectives on the Quay, 800 in the Sackon Warehouse, and about 212,000 in the city itself. Casualties among the civilians had been equally bad. Some 15,000 workers from the factories who had been ordered to fight to defend their workplaces had been killed, were wounded, or were missing and presumed dead. Another 5,000 civilians—mostly those who had refused to leave their homes, and evaded teams sent to force them--were thought dead in the suburbs, or taken prisoner and suffered horribly as slaves, some many weeks prior when they'd refused to leave their homes and been taken under artillery fire. A final 25,000 or so had died in the recent offensives into the city, the terror bombardment of the city, and from disease and malnutrion. At least 500 stillbirths had been confirmed as a result of health factors in the mothers related to the siege; and so the fatalities, in the Taloran calculation, among the civilians would be 30,500. That meant there were some 420,000 civilians left alive in the city, counting some foreigners who could not fight. Conversely, 318,000 soldiers and sailors had become casualties, of whom approximately 190,000 were still alive and safely in Kalundan territory, with perhaps another 5,000 slaving away inside Norman territory, who had been sent away before the execution orders had been issued, the rest being fatalities.
153,500+ Kalundans were therefore dead in the siege so far, over the course of less than two months. These figures did not take into account the numerous population of the outlands which had not been successfully evacuated to the city, however, and now suffered under Allied occupation. The population which had not been evacuated, and now suffered under that occupation, was about 3.5 millions in all, and of these the Normans had forced 60,000 into work as conscripted labourers, of whom at least 10,000 were dead; another 60,000 women had been taken as slaves back to the allied countries and the untold horrors that awaited them, with five thousand men castrated and sent to the Amazon territories before their civil war; and another perhaps 30,000 had been executed in mass by Allied terror parties to suppress uprisings, or died when their food was confiscated by the Allies for their own soldiers, or from the effects of the weather when their homes had been burned or they had been evicted from them for the quartering of troops, or from the disease which was now gleefully striking down many in the primitive zone with the lack of medical aide from the rest of Gilead, as had once before prevented such maladies. Thus the total fatalities in the nation were nearly 200,000 out of rather more than 4.5 millions.
The simple citation of statistics is insufficient. It must be observed that in ratio to the population, and with such a growing and young population, indeed, with large families, essentially every single family had lost at least one relative in the fighting, of some closeness. Nobody was untouched. Most of the families were sundered, with sons or fathers or husbands off in the city, and many daughters besides for the Crimson Guard, fighting in defence of the place, and their families enduring the indignities of the allied occupation in turn.
In the midst of all of that suffering and death, a priestess gently maintained watch over her stricken liege, and then, from time to time, such as now, checked on the status of her ward, a very rare person now. An allied prisoner in the heart of the city, and not one of the several Gilean military personnel taken, either.
The Stirlin brigadier was a tall woman of distinctly Manchu features and a twisted and grim look on her face, with plenty of corded muscle under her skin, though not in a grotesque way; it was all lean and sharp. Ilavna had insisted on her parole, but in practice she was maintained in a dignified house arrest underground in Jhayka's apartments. Her name was Jalin, and the utter savagery of the Stirlin people was shown in her proud and barbaric countenance.
Yet despite it all she was very intelligent, and Ilavna talked with her, cooly certain of her safety from her own telepathic abilities. Her recognition of Jalin's parole did not extend that far...
They were together, the woman—used to suffering on the bottom as much as being on the top of the pecking order of Stirlin society, for she had to claw up as they all did from the bottom—respectively serving Ilavna dhpou, which had proved a sort of service the Taloran priestess was entirely uncertain about responding to.
They were settling down to talk again, as they had talked before, in Ilavna's genuine curiousity, when there was a sound from above, the intercom crackling, and then:
“This is a live feed from the international fleet in orbit... This is a live feed from the international fleet in orbit..”
A second crackle of static, and then an incredible and booming, grating voice, clearly intended for other ears but so very welcome to the people of Kalundaas well, echoed into the room:
LAND THE LANDING FORCE! LAND THE LANDING FORCE! LAND THE LANDING FORCE! LAND THE LANDING FORCE!
Ilavna looked down, and rather gently offered to the trembling visage on Jalin's face, a simple murmur: “Forgive my liege for her misplaced kindness. Nobody should have to be, as you will now be, a helpless witness to the destruction of their own people.”
Near the Henley River, Border of Amazon/Norman Territory
DAY 48
The smoke from a burning plantation rose into the air behind the Army of the Valley as it moved on from it's camp for the night. It was the sixth great plantation of the Norman rich that Dao Zhi had taken and burned, and the foodstuffs they had seized from the plantations and from the small villages they had poured through was keeping their march going.
The Norman army that had disintegrated the night outside of Thentis had never reformed; it's components had kept flowing south frantically, leaving a trail of their dying and dead wounded behind them for the Valley Army to march by. Ahead of them was another Norman Army, with a bit more modern weaponry, but also faced against the Amazon bridgehead over the River.
The Gilean sun was still dawning when Captain MacDougal, Major Winston's second, entered the tent where Dao Zhi was preparing with his "staff" to move the headquarters along with the army. He saluted and gave his report: "The scouts have confirmed that we have made it to the river and that the extreme northern flank of the Norman army blocking the Amazon bridgehead is within five miles march."
"That is welcome news indeed," Dao Zhi remarked.
"I have also received a radio message, Your Highness, that the Duchess and her entourage are within half a day's ride."
Dao Zhi was happy to hear that; he had little illusion that he and the Amazons could work well together, and knew that it was Sara that the new Magestrix wanted to deal with. "That is excellent news. Send it down among the men, and make sure the order is given to assume combat formation before we commence march. Then you may consider yourself dismissed from my presence."
MacDougal nodded and left, leaving Dao Zhi to examine one of the detailed maps provided by Sara. Their knowledge of Norman positions was still a little scanty, and he would make sure to leave the left flank strong should a Norman force approach from that direction. But if all went well, his army of riflemen and pike would plow into the right flank of the Normans by the afternoon.
As it turned out, the Normans did not let all go well, but in scarcely an unwelcome fashion. Instead of trying to face the advance of the Zhai-led army, they retired up the rail line through early afternoon, leading to only a few brief skirmishers with the Zhai, and abandoning their blockade of the Amazon force. In short order this Norman defensive position had therefore been abandoned without a fight.
It was a very surprising development, and of course a very welcome one. There was nothing between the combined Zhai-Amazonian Army and the city of Ar, now, except the Heights of Ar themselves, the ridge which flanked the great city on two sides and would, granted, provide a formidable defensive position. Yet at the same time, if it was gained, modern artillery could command the city from the rail-line atop it, as the General Faeria had demonstrated those two months prior.
Dao Zhi realized intuitively that this would be the next, the only, place where the Normans could stand. With their capitol's walls smashed, they could not even defend it against an army like their own in a regular siege. A strong force would have to hold the heights to protect Ar, and this withdraw meant, surely, that the Normans were pulling back all of their remaining troops in their own territory to try and defend their capitol. It was the best news of the whole campaign.
The international forces were coming. Dao Zhi knew this. In absence of further instructions from Sara, it seemed the best course was to maintain an advance toward Ar in conjunction with Leeasa, insomuch as the Magestrix would allow it, and together to pin down the remaining Norman Army on the heights of Ar. Flying columns could then ravage the rest of the Norman Empire essentially at will, and secure their own resupply, while they simply waited for the arrival of the international forces to finish off the great city and lay the Normans low.
Leeasa Avrila herself ordered her armoured train forward to pursue the retreating Normans, and got her Amazons moving at once. They had suffered considerably couped up and besieged in their bridgehead, and now with the chance of freedom of movement she ordered a pursuit and hoped it could be put together fast enough to give them a chance for some blood of their hated enemies.
It was not to be. The Normans were quick about withdrawing, and though the armoured train pursued them fast enough to continuously harry their rearguard, it was unsupported and could not make a significant attack on its own. In the meantime, her efforts of coordination with Sara were unanswered, and Leeasa manoeuvred her army to the far side of the rail line, wary of the Zhai at first.
In the process of these delicate “manoeuvre negotiations” of the two co-belligerents, the Norman Army force was at last able to slip away into the evening. Considering both sides knew that they did not have enough force to gain the Heights of Ar by storm, it was not a great loss, and so the wary exchange of messengers continued until late in the evening Leeasa had confirmed that Sara was arriving soon to handle the negotiations personally—the Zhai army had of course been advancing at the same time Sara was riding, and delayed her arrival accordingly--and ordered her army to camp for the night, having managed, despite mechanization, fifteen kilometres at the very most. The Zhai camped on the opposite side of the rail line from them, and peace reigned for the night.
The next day, Leeasa Avrila would finally meet the hero of the old wars herself.. And probably the greatest advocate she could hope her nation would have in its coming trials, when the international powers would sit in judgement. But before such matters were handled, they must plan their strategy for the despoilment of the Norman Empire, and the checking of the powerful Norman reserve Army which must now be gathering around the city of Ar itself for a last stand, come to it.
DAY 48
Kalunda.
Allied progress had been stalled in gaining the south-bank riverfront for the past twenty-four hours. The houses here were old and wooden, or partially stone and partially wood, and burned easily and were entirely ruins now, they were not sufficient to produce an effective barrier against the strong advance of the massed allied forces. Their assaults had only been held back by air support, in combination with the sensible directives of the Duchess of Medina, whose befuddled personal demeanour was laid bare as a falsehood in the clear and firm orders she proved quite capable of issuing.
The allies had hence become more and more demoralized, and at the daily meeting of the primary commanders they had again debated the process of simply dispersing into the woods, which Erqui opposed as usual. He, among them all, was determined to prove his theories right and gain the victory here.. And Tarl Ikmen was easily swayed on account of his desire for vengeance, through the manipulation of the Warleader. The al-Farani Emir, imbued with an incredible sense of Islamic fatalism, raised no protests, and so the council continued the attacks, out of desperation or resignation or bloody madness, or perhaps all of them together.
What could they do, except keep trying to break through, to complete the plan? They were so close that many of their troops on the front line could see the water of the river from their positions. Except for the pockets of the Quay and the Warehouse in the industrial district, the whole of the south bank would be reduced by just one more stern effort. Then they could redeploy to the relative safety of the north bank with all save a small, sacrificial blocking force, and launch their grand assault on the heart of the old city.
Yet all of this seemed to come to naught, despite their continued resolution, at the renewed resistance of the Kalundans. For those twenty-four hours it was like they had not suffered the massive casualties and losses of ground that they had in the past weeks, which had left them demoralized and battered nearly to the breaking point. It seemed that nothing could allow the allies to prevail, now, yet...
And it was then, late in the day, the sun dipping toward the earth and the sky red and sooty with the smoke of the city, when the resistance of the Kalundans began to slack again, and the allies realized it was so with joy in their hearts. The reason was obvious. They were no longer receiving support from the international aerospace fighters. The Gileans were right, then—the fighters had been drawn off quickly enough for other tasks! Their chance given to them, the allies mustered a redoubled effort and soon the battle for the south bank waxed brilliant in intensity once more, and doubts faded away into the hot blood of combat. They had their last chance, and they proceeded to use it well.
Let us consider what had happened up to this point to the nation of Kalunda: Of the some 500,000 trained personnel that Kalunda had begun the fight with, being 1,000 palace guards, 20,000 Army, 20,000 Crimson Guard, and 20,000 militia cadres, with 440,000 mobilized reserves in all three formations, 290,000 had been killed, wounded, or captured (which usually resulted in death or mutilation), or rendered ineffective due to sickness or mental collapse from the stress of the fighting. Many had also been crippled by their own gas.
To counterbalance this, 50,000 fresh troops had been trained and sent forward in the meanwhile; 2,500 foreigners bolstered the ranks and provided direction and command; and 1,000 each additional foreigners, locals with special training, and international Marine reinforcements had ultimately come to provide a powerful reserve for the whole of the city. The strength of the two battalions had gone from 1,000 at the start of the battle for each, to about 1,450 combined; they had lost more than a quarter of their power armour. 500 of the other foreigners fighting in the city had been killed or wounded or taken prisoner. Of the 50,000 fresh troops, 10,000 had been killed or wounded. The 6,000 naval personnel of the city now formed a short regiment of 2,000, with 2,000 casualties and 2,000 still in service.
In all, there were 23,000 effectives on the Quay, 800 in the Sackon Warehouse, and about 212,000 in the city itself. Casualties among the civilians had been equally bad. Some 15,000 workers from the factories who had been ordered to fight to defend their workplaces had been killed, were wounded, or were missing and presumed dead. Another 5,000 civilians—mostly those who had refused to leave their homes, and evaded teams sent to force them--were thought dead in the suburbs, or taken prisoner and suffered horribly as slaves, some many weeks prior when they'd refused to leave their homes and been taken under artillery fire. A final 25,000 or so had died in the recent offensives into the city, the terror bombardment of the city, and from disease and malnutrion. At least 500 stillbirths had been confirmed as a result of health factors in the mothers related to the siege; and so the fatalities, in the Taloran calculation, among the civilians would be 30,500. That meant there were some 420,000 civilians left alive in the city, counting some foreigners who could not fight. Conversely, 318,000 soldiers and sailors had become casualties, of whom approximately 190,000 were still alive and safely in Kalundan territory, with perhaps another 5,000 slaving away inside Norman territory, who had been sent away before the execution orders had been issued, the rest being fatalities.
153,500+ Kalundans were therefore dead in the siege so far, over the course of less than two months. These figures did not take into account the numerous population of the outlands which had not been successfully evacuated to the city, however, and now suffered under Allied occupation. The population which had not been evacuated, and now suffered under that occupation, was about 3.5 millions in all, and of these the Normans had forced 60,000 into work as conscripted labourers, of whom at least 10,000 were dead; another 60,000 women had been taken as slaves back to the allied countries and the untold horrors that awaited them, with five thousand men castrated and sent to the Amazon territories before their civil war; and another perhaps 30,000 had been executed in mass by Allied terror parties to suppress uprisings, or died when their food was confiscated by the Allies for their own soldiers, or from the effects of the weather when their homes had been burned or they had been evicted from them for the quartering of troops, or from the disease which was now gleefully striking down many in the primitive zone with the lack of medical aide from the rest of Gilead, as had once before prevented such maladies. Thus the total fatalities in the nation were nearly 200,000 out of rather more than 4.5 millions.
The simple citation of statistics is insufficient. It must be observed that in ratio to the population, and with such a growing and young population, indeed, with large families, essentially every single family had lost at least one relative in the fighting, of some closeness. Nobody was untouched. Most of the families were sundered, with sons or fathers or husbands off in the city, and many daughters besides for the Crimson Guard, fighting in defence of the place, and their families enduring the indignities of the allied occupation in turn.
In the midst of all of that suffering and death, a priestess gently maintained watch over her stricken liege, and then, from time to time, such as now, checked on the status of her ward, a very rare person now. An allied prisoner in the heart of the city, and not one of the several Gilean military personnel taken, either.
The Stirlin brigadier was a tall woman of distinctly Manchu features and a twisted and grim look on her face, with plenty of corded muscle under her skin, though not in a grotesque way; it was all lean and sharp. Ilavna had insisted on her parole, but in practice she was maintained in a dignified house arrest underground in Jhayka's apartments. Her name was Jalin, and the utter savagery of the Stirlin people was shown in her proud and barbaric countenance.
Yet despite it all she was very intelligent, and Ilavna talked with her, cooly certain of her safety from her own telepathic abilities. Her recognition of Jalin's parole did not extend that far...
They were together, the woman—used to suffering on the bottom as much as being on the top of the pecking order of Stirlin society, for she had to claw up as they all did from the bottom—respectively serving Ilavna dhpou, which had proved a sort of service the Taloran priestess was entirely uncertain about responding to.
They were settling down to talk again, as they had talked before, in Ilavna's genuine curiousity, when there was a sound from above, the intercom crackling, and then:
“This is a live feed from the international fleet in orbit... This is a live feed from the international fleet in orbit..”
A second crackle of static, and then an incredible and booming, grating voice, clearly intended for other ears but so very welcome to the people of Kalundaas well, echoed into the room:
LAND THE LANDING FORCE! LAND THE LANDING FORCE! LAND THE LANDING FORCE! LAND THE LANDING FORCE!
Ilavna looked down, and rather gently offered to the trembling visage on Jalin's face, a simple murmur: “Forgive my liege for her misplaced kindness. Nobody should have to be, as you will now be, a helpless witness to the destruction of their own people.”
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
By Marina and myself
Near Ar, Gilead
DAY 49
It had taken two days of the swiftest riding for Sara and her accompanying forces to catch up with the army. To her delight, they found them along the rail line that linked Kellervil to Ar, within sights of the western Heights of Ar. She looked up at them and a slight grin crossed her face as she remembered the last time she'd been in this place.
Forty years ago, she had been with the Kalundan Army, Julio in it's lead, when it made it's fateful second junction with the al-Farani and Sedevacanticist armies. It had been at the top that Ubar Forsemis had been forced to sign the treaty that left the "Norman Empire", it's armies defeated and it's lands under threat of pillage, shorn of half it's territory and forced to part ways with over half it's treasury. A relatively small portion had wound up in Sara's name, the rest of her fortune coming from the Chinese tong lord who had sold her into slaver in the first place, Lord Quao. Quao had left her a message, extolling her to make her life "interesting" and to do as she wanted with his money. Being no fool, Sara knew he expected her to do good things, anger bad people, and suffer a bad end because of it.
And she had, indeed, done good things and angered bad people, but she'd proven more clever, wiley, and resourceful than they were, and had escaped from their vengeance every time.
After only the briefest of rests, Sara had dressed in the finest uniform she had available and went with her grandson William, General Dao Zi, and Princess Mei-Li to the rail line itself, where the Amazons awaited her. Leeasa and a coterie of her most trusted advisors were waiting on the other side of the rail, on horseback as well, wearing formal Amazonian war dress - about the only formal Amazonian wear that covered their chests, leaving Mei-Li and Dao Zi as the only ones to have left their chests bare, though adorned with the gold neckwear and helmets of their royal status. "Magestrix Avrila," Sara called out. "It heartens me to see you and your army are well."
"We have had a long march to this place," Leeasa answered, and took the lead for her nervous coterie, guiding her horse to walk up gently onto the rails themselves, where she reigned in and gestured to Sara. The tracks were broad, seven feet between the rails, and she jumped down in a lithe motion, and patted the side of her horse. "To think that once our people used these animals to fight, and now we can bring scarcely a thousand with us in the whole army, for scouting only... But come, Sara Proctor, Hammer of the Normans, as my mother called you when she spoke longingly of your noble deeds--let us sit here and we'll speak of the things which have taken place and what we must do." And in a typically stern Amazonian fashion, then, her chosen perch was to settle precariously, knees up, along the warmth of the steel rail itself.
Sara dismounted as well and sat as Leeasa did, ignoring the pain of the warm steel against her despite her clothing. "The peoples of the Valley, as you have seen, are fully rallied to my cause. My Valley army numbers ten thousand alone, with the two platoons of my Ducal Guards as a core of modern-armed men, and since has been buoyed by an additional four hundred Norman converts to the Christian faith or escaped slaves and by two thousand Thantians. The rest of the Thantian tribes are readied for war, under my direction as their War Leader, and are even now raiding and striking the remaining Norman mines in the mountains and their mountainside communities and villages. And as my note to you stated, the city of Thentis is now in my hand, overseen by a garrison of Zhai and Valley warriors, and has thus opened up the way for us to receive food and material from the East Valley."
"Splendid," Leeasa answered cordially. "I am bringing a total of fourty thousand warriors across the river and forming up along our camps right now, with the aide of the trains we've seized. Another ten thousand remain to garrison the crucial points... All have modern arms, as we took a rich store in regaining our homeland. Together we may advance against the Normans, but they have at least thirty thousand which have fallen back from the river and I am to understand many more of their old men and boys have been mustered to defend the city itself, and the supply lines to Kalunda..." A dangerous gleam: "That said, Sara Proctor, the whole rest of the Norman state is uncovered. They have the troops to keep us out of Ar... But everything unprotected by walls in the whole of the Empire may be put to the torch. They will, I hope, be unable to bear this and come down to offer pitched battle in a place of our choosing where we might overcome them." The rest was somewhat more furtive: "Though all of this, of course, depends on the international forces, to some extent."
"My supply lines and the needs of the peoples of the Valley do not allow me to maintain a large army here, Magestrix, but I may yet gain another couple of thousand by shifting forces away from the al-Farani, who we have heard are now under attack by the forces of the anti-Pope here in the Eastern Region, and even more might be gained by raids south to free those unfortunates who were taken by the Normans before they could escape to the walls of Kalunda." Sara smiled at her. "The Zhai are knowledgable of the ways of horseback raiding, and the Thantians are raiders and plunderers by inclination. Together, our armies will devastate the Norman heartland as it should have been four decades ago. If this bloody war has not yet extinguished the love for conquest and war in the hearts of Ar and it's people, then we shall by bringing war and devastation to their very doorsteps."
"Nor are walls always a great obstacle, and though we may not even have the time to fully assault a walled city, I do have means with explosives and stratagems to gain entry into walled cities, as I did at Thentis. There are Christians spread across the Norman Empire, Magestrix, in every community, every town and city. These Christians will respond to an army flying the Banner of the Cross where none other would prompt them to action, for they have been told that when such a day comes, to die in battle is to gain absolution for sin and to be brought up to Heaven, and they can be the Fifth Column that delivers walled communities to our forces if we so deem."
"As for the International Forces, I expect them to be at Kalunda within the week. The more damage we do here, the faster the Norman armies fold when the International Forces meet them directly." Sara smiled widely. "And while I would love to be waiting for them with the Homestone of Ar in our possession, I am not sure we can provoke the Normans to sally against us before the International Forces arrive. But we will certainly try, and do them as much harm as possible in the meantime."
"Would that not be a great coup?" Leeasa stretched slightly, remaining comfortable from her own rigorous training as a child, and looking over Sara carefully. "You speak of Christians in the many cities. We have our own bad stories of Christendom, of course, and the forces of the Antipope. But one thing I'm worried about is the star forces, the international states coming down to us. They are, I understand, mostly Christian powers and vigorously so. I trust only in the arrival of the Talorans, and that because one of their own gave certain assurances to me--I do not think you know of this--and if she is dead my people are in a poor condition. They are bringing a cleaver down upon us, Sara Proctor.. You fought with us to defend us against the Normans once, and now we shall crush them once and for all and grind their cities down to dust. But what is coming down upon us from the stars will do much more than that besides, and to more than just our enemies."
"You worry that the outside powers will try to forcefully dismantle your society, Magestrix?"
"I know that they will, or the Confederacy itself. The Princess Jhayka told me as much, after she had cured me in the hospital of Kalunda from the effects of her poison gas," Leeasa spoke quietly, thoughtfully, a bit sadly. "She told me that such a storm was coming as would sweep over the whole of these world and leave nothing unchanged. And I don't doubt it. We knew it, after all. We knew that if we didn't fight, we'd die as a society. So she gave me an out. A way I could fight the Normans and preserve my people. She promised to give us our own colony world if we broke the alliance and made war on her enemies. And when the whole of the tribal assembly refused, I knew my only chance was in breaking the lines with my supporters, and making a march over the mountains to our homeland to establish ourselves firmly in it and fight the Normans from it... In hopes that she would think that a good enough upholding of our end of the agreement, that she would uphold her's. I harbor no hope for any people of these lands, Sarah Proctor. You may be an advocate for us but it will not be enough for us. We will lose all of our fine homeland, and have to start anew... But the alternative is worse." And it was truly the opinion of someone who felt there was no other good options possible.
Sara nodded at that. "I understand your concerns. Perhaps greater than you do, for I know of many of these foreign nations and how their leaders think. And in the event that the Princess Jhayka dies, all I can offer you is the same as I offered the peoples already under my command; that if the outside powers elect to end your autonomy, and threaten your people with extinction, I will use my resources to move you to my holdings, and allow you to swear yourself and the line of Magestrices of the Amazons to my service as vassal, with most of your people's ancient rights preserved as part of your oath of fealty, save for your right to keep slaves, to castrate men, and to expose to death male infants - and under modern technology I know this would not be a concern anyway, and if it were, adoption would be a possibility. Indeed, if you wished it, your people could enjoy the benefits of technology fully, without the mad patchwork of laws governing this Primitive Zone."
Unlike the Princess Jhayka, I cannot offer you a world of your own. But I am also a Grand Duchess of the Kingdom of Devenshire, surpassed in rank only by the Queen Herself and the Royal Family. The worlds under my rule number in the dozens, and a number are not so strongly populated that there are not wide areas of land open for your people to settle. Indeed, the uninhabited lands I hold by right of my titles are greater in area and in potential agricultural wealth than the entire Primitive Zone of Gilead. Some of this would be granted to your people if this were to come to pass."
"We will leave this place one way or another," Leeasa agreed, not saying it outright, but it was clear she did.. And rather sadly and reluctantly. "It is settled, there." A pause, and: "Shall we then, Grand Duchess, proceed with our forces in common, your infantry as the right wing, and mine as the left; and we'll attach my thousand horsewomen to your cavalry then and let them loose to raid at once, while we keep the Norman armies fixed in place by our combined strength of infantry?"
"I agree with that plan," Sara replied. "General Dao Zi will be my commander for these raiding efforts."
"I'll acknowledge you as the senior here, then. Your infantry will not like to be under my command, and I dislike the prospect of it anyway; but all the Amazons in my ranks will respect you, you as Sara Proctor, Grand Duchess afar or not, as their commander. We have at least not forgotten our shared past."
"I accept, Magestrix, and thereby also accept you as my second." Sara stood from the rails. "Shall we not get to work, Magestrix? The International Forces are landing and time grows short."
Leeasa also rose, and nodded curtly, though her words had a trace of pride to them: "Let us show them that we can fight, also."
Near Ar, Gilead
DAY 49
It had taken two days of the swiftest riding for Sara and her accompanying forces to catch up with the army. To her delight, they found them along the rail line that linked Kellervil to Ar, within sights of the western Heights of Ar. She looked up at them and a slight grin crossed her face as she remembered the last time she'd been in this place.
Forty years ago, she had been with the Kalundan Army, Julio in it's lead, when it made it's fateful second junction with the al-Farani and Sedevacanticist armies. It had been at the top that Ubar Forsemis had been forced to sign the treaty that left the "Norman Empire", it's armies defeated and it's lands under threat of pillage, shorn of half it's territory and forced to part ways with over half it's treasury. A relatively small portion had wound up in Sara's name, the rest of her fortune coming from the Chinese tong lord who had sold her into slaver in the first place, Lord Quao. Quao had left her a message, extolling her to make her life "interesting" and to do as she wanted with his money. Being no fool, Sara knew he expected her to do good things, anger bad people, and suffer a bad end because of it.
And she had, indeed, done good things and angered bad people, but she'd proven more clever, wiley, and resourceful than they were, and had escaped from their vengeance every time.
After only the briefest of rests, Sara had dressed in the finest uniform she had available and went with her grandson William, General Dao Zi, and Princess Mei-Li to the rail line itself, where the Amazons awaited her. Leeasa and a coterie of her most trusted advisors were waiting on the other side of the rail, on horseback as well, wearing formal Amazonian war dress - about the only formal Amazonian wear that covered their chests, leaving Mei-Li and Dao Zi as the only ones to have left their chests bare, though adorned with the gold neckwear and helmets of their royal status. "Magestrix Avrila," Sara called out. "It heartens me to see you and your army are well."
"We have had a long march to this place," Leeasa answered, and took the lead for her nervous coterie, guiding her horse to walk up gently onto the rails themselves, where she reigned in and gestured to Sara. The tracks were broad, seven feet between the rails, and she jumped down in a lithe motion, and patted the side of her horse. "To think that once our people used these animals to fight, and now we can bring scarcely a thousand with us in the whole army, for scouting only... But come, Sara Proctor, Hammer of the Normans, as my mother called you when she spoke longingly of your noble deeds--let us sit here and we'll speak of the things which have taken place and what we must do." And in a typically stern Amazonian fashion, then, her chosen perch was to settle precariously, knees up, along the warmth of the steel rail itself.
Sara dismounted as well and sat as Leeasa did, ignoring the pain of the warm steel against her despite her clothing. "The peoples of the Valley, as you have seen, are fully rallied to my cause. My Valley army numbers ten thousand alone, with the two platoons of my Ducal Guards as a core of modern-armed men, and since has been buoyed by an additional four hundred Norman converts to the Christian faith or escaped slaves and by two thousand Thantians. The rest of the Thantian tribes are readied for war, under my direction as their War Leader, and are even now raiding and striking the remaining Norman mines in the mountains and their mountainside communities and villages. And as my note to you stated, the city of Thentis is now in my hand, overseen by a garrison of Zhai and Valley warriors, and has thus opened up the way for us to receive food and material from the East Valley."
"Splendid," Leeasa answered cordially. "I am bringing a total of fourty thousand warriors across the river and forming up along our camps right now, with the aide of the trains we've seized. Another ten thousand remain to garrison the crucial points... All have modern arms, as we took a rich store in regaining our homeland. Together we may advance against the Normans, but they have at least thirty thousand which have fallen back from the river and I am to understand many more of their old men and boys have been mustered to defend the city itself, and the supply lines to Kalunda..." A dangerous gleam: "That said, Sara Proctor, the whole rest of the Norman state is uncovered. They have the troops to keep us out of Ar... But everything unprotected by walls in the whole of the Empire may be put to the torch. They will, I hope, be unable to bear this and come down to offer pitched battle in a place of our choosing where we might overcome them." The rest was somewhat more furtive: "Though all of this, of course, depends on the international forces, to some extent."
"My supply lines and the needs of the peoples of the Valley do not allow me to maintain a large army here, Magestrix, but I may yet gain another couple of thousand by shifting forces away from the al-Farani, who we have heard are now under attack by the forces of the anti-Pope here in the Eastern Region, and even more might be gained by raids south to free those unfortunates who were taken by the Normans before they could escape to the walls of Kalunda." Sara smiled at her. "The Zhai are knowledgable of the ways of horseback raiding, and the Thantians are raiders and plunderers by inclination. Together, our armies will devastate the Norman heartland as it should have been four decades ago. If this bloody war has not yet extinguished the love for conquest and war in the hearts of Ar and it's people, then we shall by bringing war and devastation to their very doorsteps."
"Nor are walls always a great obstacle, and though we may not even have the time to fully assault a walled city, I do have means with explosives and stratagems to gain entry into walled cities, as I did at Thentis. There are Christians spread across the Norman Empire, Magestrix, in every community, every town and city. These Christians will respond to an army flying the Banner of the Cross where none other would prompt them to action, for they have been told that when such a day comes, to die in battle is to gain absolution for sin and to be brought up to Heaven, and they can be the Fifth Column that delivers walled communities to our forces if we so deem."
"As for the International Forces, I expect them to be at Kalunda within the week. The more damage we do here, the faster the Norman armies fold when the International Forces meet them directly." Sara smiled widely. "And while I would love to be waiting for them with the Homestone of Ar in our possession, I am not sure we can provoke the Normans to sally against us before the International Forces arrive. But we will certainly try, and do them as much harm as possible in the meantime."
"Would that not be a great coup?" Leeasa stretched slightly, remaining comfortable from her own rigorous training as a child, and looking over Sara carefully. "You speak of Christians in the many cities. We have our own bad stories of Christendom, of course, and the forces of the Antipope. But one thing I'm worried about is the star forces, the international states coming down to us. They are, I understand, mostly Christian powers and vigorously so. I trust only in the arrival of the Talorans, and that because one of their own gave certain assurances to me--I do not think you know of this--and if she is dead my people are in a poor condition. They are bringing a cleaver down upon us, Sara Proctor.. You fought with us to defend us against the Normans once, and now we shall crush them once and for all and grind their cities down to dust. But what is coming down upon us from the stars will do much more than that besides, and to more than just our enemies."
"You worry that the outside powers will try to forcefully dismantle your society, Magestrix?"
"I know that they will, or the Confederacy itself. The Princess Jhayka told me as much, after she had cured me in the hospital of Kalunda from the effects of her poison gas," Leeasa spoke quietly, thoughtfully, a bit sadly. "She told me that such a storm was coming as would sweep over the whole of these world and leave nothing unchanged. And I don't doubt it. We knew it, after all. We knew that if we didn't fight, we'd die as a society. So she gave me an out. A way I could fight the Normans and preserve my people. She promised to give us our own colony world if we broke the alliance and made war on her enemies. And when the whole of the tribal assembly refused, I knew my only chance was in breaking the lines with my supporters, and making a march over the mountains to our homeland to establish ourselves firmly in it and fight the Normans from it... In hopes that she would think that a good enough upholding of our end of the agreement, that she would uphold her's. I harbor no hope for any people of these lands, Sarah Proctor. You may be an advocate for us but it will not be enough for us. We will lose all of our fine homeland, and have to start anew... But the alternative is worse." And it was truly the opinion of someone who felt there was no other good options possible.
Sara nodded at that. "I understand your concerns. Perhaps greater than you do, for I know of many of these foreign nations and how their leaders think. And in the event that the Princess Jhayka dies, all I can offer you is the same as I offered the peoples already under my command; that if the outside powers elect to end your autonomy, and threaten your people with extinction, I will use my resources to move you to my holdings, and allow you to swear yourself and the line of Magestrices of the Amazons to my service as vassal, with most of your people's ancient rights preserved as part of your oath of fealty, save for your right to keep slaves, to castrate men, and to expose to death male infants - and under modern technology I know this would not be a concern anyway, and if it were, adoption would be a possibility. Indeed, if you wished it, your people could enjoy the benefits of technology fully, without the mad patchwork of laws governing this Primitive Zone."
Unlike the Princess Jhayka, I cannot offer you a world of your own. But I am also a Grand Duchess of the Kingdom of Devenshire, surpassed in rank only by the Queen Herself and the Royal Family. The worlds under my rule number in the dozens, and a number are not so strongly populated that there are not wide areas of land open for your people to settle. Indeed, the uninhabited lands I hold by right of my titles are greater in area and in potential agricultural wealth than the entire Primitive Zone of Gilead. Some of this would be granted to your people if this were to come to pass."
"We will leave this place one way or another," Leeasa agreed, not saying it outright, but it was clear she did.. And rather sadly and reluctantly. "It is settled, there." A pause, and: "Shall we then, Grand Duchess, proceed with our forces in common, your infantry as the right wing, and mine as the left; and we'll attach my thousand horsewomen to your cavalry then and let them loose to raid at once, while we keep the Norman armies fixed in place by our combined strength of infantry?"
"I agree with that plan," Sara replied. "General Dao Zi will be my commander for these raiding efforts."
"I'll acknowledge you as the senior here, then. Your infantry will not like to be under my command, and I dislike the prospect of it anyway; but all the Amazons in my ranks will respect you, you as Sara Proctor, Grand Duchess afar or not, as their commander. We have at least not forgotten our shared past."
"I accept, Magestrix, and thereby also accept you as my second." Sara stood from the rails. "Shall we not get to work, Magestrix? The International Forces are landing and time grows short."
Leeasa also rose, and nodded curtly, though her words had a trace of pride to them: "Let us show them that we can fight, also."
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
First part by me, second by Marina
Kalunda, Gilead
DAY 48
The burning in Amber's left side was gone now, and she laid in the hospital bed that she had noticed on and off while slumbering, dressed in a hospital gown. She opened her eyes and saw the underground hospital room once more. Monitors around her beeped and did their thing, assuring the nurses outside that she was alive.
She looked up and looked into a pair of lovely emerald eyes. Dani looked down at Amber, wearing - most strangely - an easily-removed green silk band around her breasts and a similar skirt around her hips. She smiled at Amber and said, "Awake yet, tiger?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you to wake up, silly. So I could do this." And with that Dani kissed her full on the mouth. Amber couldn't move enough to resist, and deep down she didn't want to. She let Dani's tongue slip into her mouth and touched it with her own, enjoying Dani's taste.
The amazingly beautiful woman slipped onto the bed, barely breaking the kiss, and her hands traveled to Amber's gown, pulling it open and gently touching Amber's breasts. Amber's hands went up to take Dani's face at the cheeks, holding her closer for another kiss. After this Dani's head moved downward, her tongue moving along Amber's neck. "Oh Dani...." Amber moaned.
"Dani?"
The voice cut through Amber's dream like a blade. Her eyes opened again and she was in the same room, in the same bed, but instead of Dani's luscious, barely-clothed body it was her very-clothed, uniformed sister Sarina. She looked at Amber with one of her "Just what the hell are you thinking?" looks of curiosity. "Feeling better?"
"I was, until you rudely interrupted me," Amber mumbled.
"Ah, it was that kind of dream. I thought you were picking up your breath a bit." Sarina smiled sarcastically. "Well, the docs said you're okay..."
"What... what happened?"
"You won, mission successful, et cetera. The Marshal's life was saved by surgery, though she still hasn't woken up. Dani's alive and well, but unfortunately for you she's still in love with Jhayka and won't be coming by any time soon..." Sarina's smile was now that of teasing. "I'd ask for the sexy details but some of your sexual fantasies frankly disturb me, Sister."
Amber mock-frowned at Sarina. "Oh, you're asking for it. And I'll make sure the Baroness gives it to you the next time you're in her tender mercies."
"Unlike some female members of this family, sister, I have never been bound by a lover," Sarina responded with a smirk. "Another bit of good news, Sister, is that the International Forces have already made contact with us and will be landing in the next few days, perhaps even tonight."
Amber heard that news and a wide smile crossed her face. After all this time, I had begun to lose hope! "Then maybe we'll survive all of this?"
"Yes," Sarina replied. "I think we all will."
"That's.... good to hear, Sister, good to hear." Amber took her hand. "Now, can you please get me something to eat and drink? I'm famished!"
"Oh, just give it a minute, but then I must be getting back to duty. With the Marshal incapacitated I've been given more duties, as His Majesty has been forced to take direct command for the time being and my services as Chief of Staff are invaluable to him."
"Well, then, Sister, I won't hold you back from duty to His Majesty. Please arrange for the nurses to send me something, and then go back to work. I'll talk to you later."
Sarina nodded at that. "Later then, sister." She promptly left.
DAY 48/49
S. of East Port.
In the dark of the night, countless shapes began descending through the sky, brief points of red flashing as their retro-rockets fired, slowing their rapid descents before the opening of parachutes. As the pods, roasted black from atmospheric entry, slammed down to the ground, they were immediately burst open and power-armoured infantry charged out, rapidly taking up positions near the abandoned farmhouses in the area just to the north of the town of Yhusai and above the Ratim river.
Following them closely were larger pods. These contained 100-ton space-droppable hovertanks, fully manned, which powered out of the collapsing side slates and drove forward under the direction of their commanders on the ground as command and control facilities were quickly set up. To either flank of the Taloran Marine Brigade being landed in this fashion (short one company now fighting in Kalunda) were Slavian and Habsburg Marine brigades landing in the same fashion. Quickly a forward position was established and contact was secured with General Arshon's force which was numbering 55,000 in all and moving up behind the brigades.
Between the two forces, in the darkness of the night, bright flares were lit to guide in the heavy landers which followed the space-droppable forces. These were deploying a Slavian and a Taloran heavy armour brigade, the rest of the southern force, which was to be formed under the command of a Slavian corps commander of Serbian extraction, Major General Goran Lazarevic, the Baron of Ptastela.
The two armoured brigades were independent forces and incredibly powerful onces at that. The Taloran armoured brigade boasted two regiments, each of 64 x 250 ton hovertanks and 32 x 120 ton medium hovertanks, plus six 250 ton command tanks, and had some eight thousand officers and other ranks in all, none of this considering the numerous APCs of the infantry in the two regiments of the brigade. The Slavian armoured brigade had the same number of heavy hovertanks, which were only slightly smaller at 210 tons each, though only 18 light tanks per regiment for scouting; but they made up for it with more infantry numbers so that the two brigades were virtually the same size.
Comparable forces were being landed in the north: An Hispanic heavy armoured brigade, an Hispanic Marine brigade, one Catalinian Marine brigade (understrength), a British Marine brigade, an ADN Marine brigade and an armoured cavalry regiment, a French 'space-mobile' light armour brigade using their 110 ton 'coloniale' tanks, and a Devenshirite force of a tank battalion of the Guard, and a marine regiment. These forces, discounting the Duchess of Medina's command post which would oversee them all, would combine with the 3,000-strong forces under the command of Dame Tessa Stuart to form the second corps of the relief force, under an Alliance Marine General.
In both cases the enemy was not in a position to contest the landings. Soon a force of 500 MB(H)Ts and 550 medium tanks, plus eight armoured trains, and along with 450 APCs and numerous scout vehicles, with 60% of the infantry in power armour, was converging from two directions on East Port with the aide of the 58,000 of Arshon and Tessa's volunteer forces which were now under their command, numbering in all 146,000 troops.
Lieutenant General Frayuia Risim, with her husband given command of joint force artillery coordination, settled down to a staff headquarters which had her family heavily representated. Moving in a very large armoured and shielded hover command vehicle twice the size of a Taloran MBHT, the whole of the zone was now laid out for her with real-time continuous datalinks from the orbiting fleet providing her enemy positions. It was somewhat annoying, what the enemy was doing...
“Ahaah. Come here, my girls.” She gestured toward the holo-projection that was activated by a key in her chair.
Yasimi, the eldest, came over at once. “Yes, General?”
“You see the.. Hmm.. Alamani?”
“General, we've got an interesting communication coming in.. Why, it's from the enemy!”
Frayuia swung her chair in surprise. “Oh? How civilized of them. Is it live?”
“They wish to speak to the commander of the relief force...”
“Then put it up, audio only.”
“Done, General.”
A static-filled line resolved into a voice of an accent, though Frayuia could not tell which: “This is Major General Rulos, commander of the Cartagenean Corps. I wish to speak to the commander of the enemy forces which have landed to the north and south of East Port..”
“You have her! I am Lieutenant General Frayuia Risim, the Duchess of Medina, representing the Taloran Star Empire in the international forces, and I command this operation... You wish to speak to me, General Rulos?”
“I do. I want your assurance on a matter.”
“Well, withdraw from the heights your forces have fortified, with shield and anti-air missile, and we will not attack you. Our mission is very specific, and we can negotiate.”
“Honour, General Risim, does not permit me to do that.” The voice of Rulos was rather heavy with fate as he spoke. “But honour compels me to do something else as well. I want your assurance on one matter, and one matter only, General Risim. I am declaring East Port an Open City and I want to know if your forces will respect this.”
“Ahaahha. I see, General Rulos.” Frayuia glanced at the chrono. It was now after midnight, and they were moving in the predawn darkness toward East Port, advancing with no opposition. It's such a refreshingly civilized sentiment. But a pity he is the only man here we'll face who will show us such a thing. “Yes, of course we will respect the declaration of East Port as an Open City, under the usual terms. That is said, and done, on my Word of Honour.”
“Thank you, General Risim.”
“But you will not yield the heights?” Frayuia pressed, hoping to avoid what promised to be an immensely bloody battle: There were nearly 400,000 troops arranged in a blocking position on the heights well above East Port precisely to prevent her army from driving up from the coastal plain to break through to the interior of the continent where a such advance would carry them right to Kalunda itself, and the salvation of that place. Most of them were very primitive or disorganzed, but the Cartagenean Corps itself boasted 145,000 men and 1,200 MBTs, though the Gilean version was only a 150 ton treaded vehicle much inferior to those possessed by the relief force, and arguably no better than their medium tanks, and the Gilean infantry lacked power armour entirely.
“I will not yield the heights, General Risim. My orders are explicit, and clear, and I presume not to violate them while the integrity of my nation still exists. I will contest your passage to the interior with all the strength at my muster. My own honour gives me no other choice, and you will find yourself with a tough fight for the sake of the honour of the oaths of myself and my officers and the reputation of our Army.”
“You are an honourable man.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, I have done all that I can. It is settled; I will see you tomorrow, General Rulos.”
“And I, it appears, you.” The connection was then cut on the line, and Frayuia wrapped her fingers together and stretched them, popping them.
“Ahhhh. It is good to know there is an honourable man in this festering cess-pool. At least this settles the problematic matter of the potential for urban fighting in East Port...” Both the girls had come up now. “Do you see, my girls, then, what their plan is? With a theatre shield and heavy anti-missiles emplaced on the heights they've dug in there, with the Cartagenean Corps' forces distributed to stiffen the great masses of the militia of the city, and the barbarians, who comprise the bulk of their army, trying to remedy thereby what would otherwise be their utter uselessness.”
“Shall we be manoeuvring,” Alamani dared at last. “The position looks very strong.”
“There are few passes broad enough to reach the interior with a force of our size safely, either, while protecting us against encirclement and ambush... Save that one. And it's the only one with a rail-line through it, which is necessary not just for the armoured trains but for the supply of our force. So we must go through them. A frontal assault which I aim to launch in twenty-seven hours, give or take, to pit our strength against their's. It is risky, but when we smash this army, then there will not be another one between us and Kalunda which can even slow us down, let alone pose a threat to us, nor are there any other anti-air defences existing on the whole continent. Thus, we shall eliminate every threat to the success of this relief force in one decisive battle, and in doing so also remove any chance of the enemy hindering total dominance of the skies here, again.”
“They outnumber us greatly.”
“Perhaps, but our armoured fist is not something that they can withstand. We will see that to be certain soon enough, my girls.” A tight, slight smile. “So back to work.”
The leading elements of the two forces entered East Port nine hours later, and in thirty minutes had met in the city, which was quickly reoccupied. The armoured trains shifted through on the rail lines moving up toward the heights, to approach them close enough so that the next day their guns could provide additional artillery support to the army, whose artillery pieces were arrayed behind them in turn. The bombardment began at once, though most of the shells were shot down by the Cartagenean Corps' defences, but it allowed them to be probed, and enough got through to do real damage so as to justify the bombardment.
That bombardment, killing a dozen here and a dozen there, causing a few hundred casualties in all to the defenders in their extensive earthen and sometimes concrete fortifications, was desultory, but it guaranteed that nobody up there had a good night's sleep with the continuous thunder of the guns, the freight-train sound of shells rumbling overhead, and the bright light flashes of the impacts, the whoosh of the firing of defensive rockets and continuous tracers from gatling cannon informing all of a barrage, and defence, fairly met. All of that cacophony, and the misery for the men of a heavy bombardment against them, would continue for fifteen hours until the battle proper began at Frayuia's signal, while the manoeuvre forces of the international Army were deployed in position, the massive hovertanks waiting with their ground effect fans whining in standby, ready to move forward enmasse the next day.
The population of East Port watched it all, those who loved their autonomy being sullen and afraid, those who desired the end of the old system, jubilant. But all were vaguely uneasy with the definite feeling that things had now changed for good, and that there would be no going back now, forever. The multiverse had finally had enough, and the forces of all the great powers had come to finish the job Sara Proctor had begun so long ago.
Kalunda, Gilead
DAY 48
The burning in Amber's left side was gone now, and she laid in the hospital bed that she had noticed on and off while slumbering, dressed in a hospital gown. She opened her eyes and saw the underground hospital room once more. Monitors around her beeped and did their thing, assuring the nurses outside that she was alive.
She looked up and looked into a pair of lovely emerald eyes. Dani looked down at Amber, wearing - most strangely - an easily-removed green silk band around her breasts and a similar skirt around her hips. She smiled at Amber and said, "Awake yet, tiger?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you to wake up, silly. So I could do this." And with that Dani kissed her full on the mouth. Amber couldn't move enough to resist, and deep down she didn't want to. She let Dani's tongue slip into her mouth and touched it with her own, enjoying Dani's taste.
The amazingly beautiful woman slipped onto the bed, barely breaking the kiss, and her hands traveled to Amber's gown, pulling it open and gently touching Amber's breasts. Amber's hands went up to take Dani's face at the cheeks, holding her closer for another kiss. After this Dani's head moved downward, her tongue moving along Amber's neck. "Oh Dani...." Amber moaned.
"Dani?"
The voice cut through Amber's dream like a blade. Her eyes opened again and she was in the same room, in the same bed, but instead of Dani's luscious, barely-clothed body it was her very-clothed, uniformed sister Sarina. She looked at Amber with one of her "Just what the hell are you thinking?" looks of curiosity. "Feeling better?"
"I was, until you rudely interrupted me," Amber mumbled.
"Ah, it was that kind of dream. I thought you were picking up your breath a bit." Sarina smiled sarcastically. "Well, the docs said you're okay..."
"What... what happened?"
"You won, mission successful, et cetera. The Marshal's life was saved by surgery, though she still hasn't woken up. Dani's alive and well, but unfortunately for you she's still in love with Jhayka and won't be coming by any time soon..." Sarina's smile was now that of teasing. "I'd ask for the sexy details but some of your sexual fantasies frankly disturb me, Sister."
Amber mock-frowned at Sarina. "Oh, you're asking for it. And I'll make sure the Baroness gives it to you the next time you're in her tender mercies."
"Unlike some female members of this family, sister, I have never been bound by a lover," Sarina responded with a smirk. "Another bit of good news, Sister, is that the International Forces have already made contact with us and will be landing in the next few days, perhaps even tonight."
Amber heard that news and a wide smile crossed her face. After all this time, I had begun to lose hope! "Then maybe we'll survive all of this?"
"Yes," Sarina replied. "I think we all will."
"That's.... good to hear, Sister, good to hear." Amber took her hand. "Now, can you please get me something to eat and drink? I'm famished!"
"Oh, just give it a minute, but then I must be getting back to duty. With the Marshal incapacitated I've been given more duties, as His Majesty has been forced to take direct command for the time being and my services as Chief of Staff are invaluable to him."
"Well, then, Sister, I won't hold you back from duty to His Majesty. Please arrange for the nurses to send me something, and then go back to work. I'll talk to you later."
Sarina nodded at that. "Later then, sister." She promptly left.
DAY 48/49
S. of East Port.
In the dark of the night, countless shapes began descending through the sky, brief points of red flashing as their retro-rockets fired, slowing their rapid descents before the opening of parachutes. As the pods, roasted black from atmospheric entry, slammed down to the ground, they were immediately burst open and power-armoured infantry charged out, rapidly taking up positions near the abandoned farmhouses in the area just to the north of the town of Yhusai and above the Ratim river.
Following them closely were larger pods. These contained 100-ton space-droppable hovertanks, fully manned, which powered out of the collapsing side slates and drove forward under the direction of their commanders on the ground as command and control facilities were quickly set up. To either flank of the Taloran Marine Brigade being landed in this fashion (short one company now fighting in Kalunda) were Slavian and Habsburg Marine brigades landing in the same fashion. Quickly a forward position was established and contact was secured with General Arshon's force which was numbering 55,000 in all and moving up behind the brigades.
Between the two forces, in the darkness of the night, bright flares were lit to guide in the heavy landers which followed the space-droppable forces. These were deploying a Slavian and a Taloran heavy armour brigade, the rest of the southern force, which was to be formed under the command of a Slavian corps commander of Serbian extraction, Major General Goran Lazarevic, the Baron of Ptastela.
The two armoured brigades were independent forces and incredibly powerful onces at that. The Taloran armoured brigade boasted two regiments, each of 64 x 250 ton hovertanks and 32 x 120 ton medium hovertanks, plus six 250 ton command tanks, and had some eight thousand officers and other ranks in all, none of this considering the numerous APCs of the infantry in the two regiments of the brigade. The Slavian armoured brigade had the same number of heavy hovertanks, which were only slightly smaller at 210 tons each, though only 18 light tanks per regiment for scouting; but they made up for it with more infantry numbers so that the two brigades were virtually the same size.
Comparable forces were being landed in the north: An Hispanic heavy armoured brigade, an Hispanic Marine brigade, one Catalinian Marine brigade (understrength), a British Marine brigade, an ADN Marine brigade and an armoured cavalry regiment, a French 'space-mobile' light armour brigade using their 110 ton 'coloniale' tanks, and a Devenshirite force of a tank battalion of the Guard, and a marine regiment. These forces, discounting the Duchess of Medina's command post which would oversee them all, would combine with the 3,000-strong forces under the command of Dame Tessa Stuart to form the second corps of the relief force, under an Alliance Marine General.
In both cases the enemy was not in a position to contest the landings. Soon a force of 500 MB(H)Ts and 550 medium tanks, plus eight armoured trains, and along with 450 APCs and numerous scout vehicles, with 60% of the infantry in power armour, was converging from two directions on East Port with the aide of the 58,000 of Arshon and Tessa's volunteer forces which were now under their command, numbering in all 146,000 troops.
Lieutenant General Frayuia Risim, with her husband given command of joint force artillery coordination, settled down to a staff headquarters which had her family heavily representated. Moving in a very large armoured and shielded hover command vehicle twice the size of a Taloran MBHT, the whole of the zone was now laid out for her with real-time continuous datalinks from the orbiting fleet providing her enemy positions. It was somewhat annoying, what the enemy was doing...
“Ahaah. Come here, my girls.” She gestured toward the holo-projection that was activated by a key in her chair.
Yasimi, the eldest, came over at once. “Yes, General?”
“You see the.. Hmm.. Alamani?”
“General, we've got an interesting communication coming in.. Why, it's from the enemy!”
Frayuia swung her chair in surprise. “Oh? How civilized of them. Is it live?”
“They wish to speak to the commander of the relief force...”
“Then put it up, audio only.”
“Done, General.”
A static-filled line resolved into a voice of an accent, though Frayuia could not tell which: “This is Major General Rulos, commander of the Cartagenean Corps. I wish to speak to the commander of the enemy forces which have landed to the north and south of East Port..”
“You have her! I am Lieutenant General Frayuia Risim, the Duchess of Medina, representing the Taloran Star Empire in the international forces, and I command this operation... You wish to speak to me, General Rulos?”
“I do. I want your assurance on a matter.”
“Well, withdraw from the heights your forces have fortified, with shield and anti-air missile, and we will not attack you. Our mission is very specific, and we can negotiate.”
“Honour, General Risim, does not permit me to do that.” The voice of Rulos was rather heavy with fate as he spoke. “But honour compels me to do something else as well. I want your assurance on one matter, and one matter only, General Risim. I am declaring East Port an Open City and I want to know if your forces will respect this.”
“Ahaahha. I see, General Rulos.” Frayuia glanced at the chrono. It was now after midnight, and they were moving in the predawn darkness toward East Port, advancing with no opposition. It's such a refreshingly civilized sentiment. But a pity he is the only man here we'll face who will show us such a thing. “Yes, of course we will respect the declaration of East Port as an Open City, under the usual terms. That is said, and done, on my Word of Honour.”
“Thank you, General Risim.”
“But you will not yield the heights?” Frayuia pressed, hoping to avoid what promised to be an immensely bloody battle: There were nearly 400,000 troops arranged in a blocking position on the heights well above East Port precisely to prevent her army from driving up from the coastal plain to break through to the interior of the continent where a such advance would carry them right to Kalunda itself, and the salvation of that place. Most of them were very primitive or disorganzed, but the Cartagenean Corps itself boasted 145,000 men and 1,200 MBTs, though the Gilean version was only a 150 ton treaded vehicle much inferior to those possessed by the relief force, and arguably no better than their medium tanks, and the Gilean infantry lacked power armour entirely.
“I will not yield the heights, General Risim. My orders are explicit, and clear, and I presume not to violate them while the integrity of my nation still exists. I will contest your passage to the interior with all the strength at my muster. My own honour gives me no other choice, and you will find yourself with a tough fight for the sake of the honour of the oaths of myself and my officers and the reputation of our Army.”
“You are an honourable man.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, I have done all that I can. It is settled; I will see you tomorrow, General Rulos.”
“And I, it appears, you.” The connection was then cut on the line, and Frayuia wrapped her fingers together and stretched them, popping them.
“Ahhhh. It is good to know there is an honourable man in this festering cess-pool. At least this settles the problematic matter of the potential for urban fighting in East Port...” Both the girls had come up now. “Do you see, my girls, then, what their plan is? With a theatre shield and heavy anti-missiles emplaced on the heights they've dug in there, with the Cartagenean Corps' forces distributed to stiffen the great masses of the militia of the city, and the barbarians, who comprise the bulk of their army, trying to remedy thereby what would otherwise be their utter uselessness.”
“Shall we be manoeuvring,” Alamani dared at last. “The position looks very strong.”
“There are few passes broad enough to reach the interior with a force of our size safely, either, while protecting us against encirclement and ambush... Save that one. And it's the only one with a rail-line through it, which is necessary not just for the armoured trains but for the supply of our force. So we must go through them. A frontal assault which I aim to launch in twenty-seven hours, give or take, to pit our strength against their's. It is risky, but when we smash this army, then there will not be another one between us and Kalunda which can even slow us down, let alone pose a threat to us, nor are there any other anti-air defences existing on the whole continent. Thus, we shall eliminate every threat to the success of this relief force in one decisive battle, and in doing so also remove any chance of the enemy hindering total dominance of the skies here, again.”
“They outnumber us greatly.”
“Perhaps, but our armoured fist is not something that they can withstand. We will see that to be certain soon enough, my girls.” A tight, slight smile. “So back to work.”
The leading elements of the two forces entered East Port nine hours later, and in thirty minutes had met in the city, which was quickly reoccupied. The armoured trains shifted through on the rail lines moving up toward the heights, to approach them close enough so that the next day their guns could provide additional artillery support to the army, whose artillery pieces were arrayed behind them in turn. The bombardment began at once, though most of the shells were shot down by the Cartagenean Corps' defences, but it allowed them to be probed, and enough got through to do real damage so as to justify the bombardment.
That bombardment, killing a dozen here and a dozen there, causing a few hundred casualties in all to the defenders in their extensive earthen and sometimes concrete fortifications, was desultory, but it guaranteed that nobody up there had a good night's sleep with the continuous thunder of the guns, the freight-train sound of shells rumbling overhead, and the bright light flashes of the impacts, the whoosh of the firing of defensive rockets and continuous tracers from gatling cannon informing all of a barrage, and defence, fairly met. All of that cacophony, and the misery for the men of a heavy bombardment against them, would continue for fifteen hours until the battle proper began at Frayuia's signal, while the manoeuvre forces of the international Army were deployed in position, the massive hovertanks waiting with their ground effect fans whining in standby, ready to move forward enmasse the next day.
The population of East Port watched it all, those who loved their autonomy being sullen and afraid, those who desired the end of the old system, jubilant. But all were vaguely uneasy with the definite feeling that things had now changed for good, and that there would be no going back now, forever. The multiverse had finally had enough, and the forces of all the great powers had come to finish the job Sara Proctor had begun so long ago.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
This begins a long series of updates I forgot to post, culminating in what Marina and I hope to be a big shocker for the readers. 
Some are by me, some by Marina, and I'm sure our writing styles differ enough for you to tell.
Kalunda, Gilead
DAY 48
The burning in Amber's left side was gone now, and she laid in the hospital bed that she had noticed on and off while slumbering, dressed in a hospital gown. She opened her eyes and saw the underground hospital room once more. Monitors around her beeped and did their thing, assuring the nurses outside that she was alive.
She looked up and looked into a pair of lovely emerald eyes. Dani looked down at Amber, wearing - most strangely - an easily-removed green silk band around her breasts and a similar skirt around her hips. She smiled at Amber and said, "Awake yet, tiger?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you to wake up, silly. So I could do this." And with that Dani kissed her full on the mouth. Amber couldn't move enough to resist, and deep down she didn't want to. She let Dani's tongue slip into her mouth and touched it with her own, enjoying Dani's taste.
The amazingly beautiful woman slipped onto the bed, barely breaking the kiss, and her hands traveled to Amber's gown, pulling it open and gently touching Amber's breasts. Amber's hands went up to take Dani's face at the cheeks, holding her closer for another kiss. After this Dani's head moved downward, her tongue moving along Amber's neck. "Oh Dani...." Amber moaned.
"Dani?"
The voice cut through Amber's dream like a blade. Her eyes opened again and she was in the same room, in the same bed, but instead of Dani's luscious, barely-clothed body it was her very-clothed, uniformed sister Sarina. She looked at Amber with one of her "Just what the hell are you thinking?" looks of curiosity. "Feeling better?"
"I was, until you rudely interrupted me," Amber mumbled.
"Ah, it was that kind of dream. I thought you were picking up your breath a bit." Sarina smiled sarcastically. "Well, the docs said you're okay..."
"What... what happened?"
"You won, mission successful, et cetera. The Marshal's life was saved by surgery, though she still hasn't woken up. Dani's alive and well, but unfortunately for you she's still in love with Jhayka and won't be coming by any time soon..." Sarina's smile was now that of teasing. "I'd ask for the sexy details but some of your sexual fantasies frankly disturb me, Sister."
Amber mock-frowned at Sarina. "Oh, you're asking for it. And I'll make sure the Baroness gives it to you the next time you're in her tender mercies."
"Unlike some female members of this family, sister, I have never been bound by a lover," Sarina responded with a smirk. "Another bit of good news, Sister, is that the International Forces have already made contact with us and will be landing in the next few days, perhaps even tonight."
Amber heard that news and a wide smile crossed her face. After all this time, I had begun to lose hope! "Then maybe we'll survive all of this?"
"Yes," Sarina replied. "I think we all will."
"That's.... good to hear, Sister, good to hear." Amber took her hand. "Now, can you please get me something to eat and drink? I'm famished!"
"Oh, just give it a minute, but then I must be getting back to duty. With the Marshal incapacitated I've been given more duties, as His Majesty has been forced to take direct command for the time being and my services as Chief of Staff are invaluable to him."
"Well, then, Sister, I won't hold you back from duty to His Majesty. Please arrange for the nurses to send me something, and then go back to work. I'll talk to you later."
Sarina nodded at that. "Later then, sister." She promptly left.
DAY 49,
QUANZHI AREA
AND POINTS EAST.
The steady blossoms of detonating nuclear weaponry lit up the sky around the port city as dozens of airbursts lit off. Craters were dug by the powerful energy bolts and railgun shots of the orbiting dreadnoughts, and volleys of missiles dug deep and annihilated the defences around the city. Cruise missiles dived under the defensive shielding, though most of them were shot down. A few got through, however, and their nuclear events proved sufficient to disable many of the disabling weaponry. Even far to the north around the capitol of Cranstonville there were numerous events.
Gilead had never invested in extensive shelters, and the result was that tens of thousands of civilians were already dead or dying from the bombardment. The arrival of aerospace fighters as the defences were attrited only increased the scale of the devastation, and working under the shields where the cruise missiles had disabled many of the defensive batteries they succeeded in knocking down the remaining theatre shields around Quanzhi. The only ones left were those around Cranstonville itself.
In all, the preparations for the landings had only taken six hours and the expenditure of about a hundred nuclear devices per hour over that period of time, along with a few hundred multi-megaton level cannon shots from the orbiting ships. Final civilian fatalities for the attacks would probably level off at one hundred thousand or so, and would mainly be the fault of the Gilean government for deciding to resist when they'd never invested in a major shelter programme. By this time nukes were very smart indeed, and with dial-a-yield and limited fallout, collateral casualties could be kept to a minimum, and the very weak and incomplete theatre shields over Quanzhi and Cranstonville had proved a minimal disruption in the overall operations. Only twenty-three aerospace fighters were lost.
There was no reason to delay the landings any further. They were planned for an area seven hundred kilometers east of Quanzhi, where the open plains of the central interior would, unlike with the coastal mountain ranges, allow for an unimpeded and sweeping crescent manoeuvre to carry the international forces into Cranstonville. Quanzhi itself, its defences destroyed, would not be directly attacked, nor would the forces around it and to the north of it, two corps in all, be assailed, in hopes that they would be lured out to rush to the aide of the capitol where thery could be more easily destroyed. These units amounted to about 300,000 men counting the remnants of the Quanzhi militia which had elected to fight for the new regime.
The force that was directly positioned facing the route of advance for the International forces consisted of eleven corps and some associated units, amounting to 1.5 million men after attrition in the civil war and the arrival of fresh replacements, which until recently had been fighting each other, four of them being rebel formations who had battled de la Hoya. They were suspicious of each other, and the new regime in Cranstonville was unpopular. Coordination was not good and their stocks of reasonably modern equipment had been exhausted in the internicine fighting.
Against them was arrayed two Slavian corps, one mechanized and one armoured, two Hispanic corps, the same, two British corps, one French corps, an Alliance corps, a Taloran corps short one brigade, a Habsburg division, a Catilinian Marine brigade, and a Devenshirite Marine brigade, around 1,350,000 troops in all. These were the forces which were now being landed on the flat farmland. The heavy landing ships burned the ground and set crops on fire as they settled down, and countless hovertanks and APCs, supply vehicles and hover-barges loaded with equipment, were soon being continuously offloaded.
Theatre shields and anti-missile missiles and energy weaponry were immediately established to defend against nuclear missile attacks by the Gilean defensive forces, which were not long in coming. Seventy missiles were fired at the landing site in twenty minutes, but only one of them got through, and the light 700kT warhead detonated several hundred meters from the nearest landing craft group, far enough that though they were crippled, there were only 18 fatalities, all in the British group that had been conducting the landings in that sector.
Around, most of the farmhouses had been abandoned by the families which had lived in them, fleeing, hiding anywhere they could. This was a modern area, and most of them had gone up into the woods in their trucks to take shelter until the storm had passed. In a few cases the officers of the international forces had walked into a country breakfast which was still warm, and enjoyed it where the prior inhabitants had not, bedding down in their homes before they'd have to move on the next day, leaving some money of a dozen nations behind as the payment the laws of war required.
Huge hovertanks were deployed defensively toward the enemy. They were up to 250 tonnes for the largest Taloran models, and the enemy had 150 tonne tracked tanks which, though nominally modern, were much inferior in all respects. The number of tanks between the two forces was also about even, heightening the disparity, and of course the Gilean Air Force had utterly ceased to exist, leaving the international forces to control the skies entirely.
Though the international forces were for the moment supporting the landings, by late the next day a concerted air campaign against the defending Gilean Army was being planned to annihilate it, or drive it out of its defensive positions, while the international forces raised to be into position to launch a vigorous assault the moment they had suffered enough, or otherwise work their way around the enemy's positions by the advantage of their much faster manoeuvring speed, and the fact that the Gilean Army moving from its defensive positions would expose it to a massed air campaign.
Even standing firm, the air campaign would take its toll sooner or later. The sustained assault would entail thousands and thousands of sorties every day while the ships in orbit rained fire down on the theatre shields. It would be possible to commence the moment that the landing forces had been entirely landed, and by evening of the next day the advance on Cranstonville would begin, with nearly three million soldiers clashing to determine the fate of the capitol of the Confederacy over a vast tract of rolling farmland rather larger than Nebraska.
With the Gilean Army so heavily outgunned and the skies dominated by the international forces, the evaluations of its commanders were extremely bleak. It seemed that only Covington and his closest circle retained any real hope of throwing back the international troops, but the President and his junta persisted, and the honour of the Gilean Armed Forces demanded the fight be sustained 'till the last resource had been thoroughly exhausted.
DAY 49,
off East Port.
Initially the Gilean taskforce off of East Port had been ignored. After all, they were not involved in any attacks on the landing force, and they were moving off, away from the city. Then Covington had demanded of Admiral Benington, the overall commander of the Taskforce, to attack the Duchess of Medina's relieving army. A desultory effort with nuclear tipped cruise missiles had proved ineffective, but it had caught the attention of the fleet in orbit. Rather than try to pot at the ships from orbit, however, it was hoped to compel their surrender by a more impressive display of overwhelming force.
The Taloran Heavy Cruiser Jhuris had been selected for the operation, primarily because essentially all Taloran ships were designed to make surface landings on water. Captain the Baroness Frilasuia itl Urasalia thought the whole plan was a bit pointless, but she could understand the humanitarian effort it represented. According, the Jhuris descended into the atmosphere, covered by the guns of the fleet and escorted by J'u'crea type assault boats.
As she did the remaining defensive batteries of the Gilean army in the area which could bear on the ship salvoed off braces of nuclear missiles at her. The weapons of the fleet in orbit and the J'u'crea's engaged the incoming missiles, shooting most of them down in fast-paced intercepts with nuclear events flashing the sky brighter than a dozen suns as a series of them staggered out over the blue of the ocean. Some of the missiles got through, however...
And that's where the nuclear-tipped anti-missile missiles of the Jhuris went into action, throwing up dozens of staggered and even interlocking fusion events which slashed through the incoming interceptors. Their real purpose in sending me down was to act as bait for the Gilean defensive missiles, Frilasuia mused sarcastically to herself, strapped into the command acceleration couch on the bridge of the Jhuris as the battle was fought.
“Interceptor range!”
Frilasuia watched the holo-plot as the last three missiles were chopped to bits by the flechette cannons. They were now only one kilometer off the water surface and dropping fast. “How close are we to entering the enemy's ship-to-ship missile range, Uras?” She queried to the ship's Astrogator.
“Approximately sixty kilometers, Captain.”
“Helm, institute landing protocols!”
“Landing protocols.. Commencing, Aye,” the helmsman responded, the ship now being readied for water touch-down, the ventral gun turrets swinging to present their streamlined rear casings ahead to prevent the development of friction, though they would not initially touch down.
“Bring us down!”
Instead, as the ship slowed to just below mach speed, the fins of the big cruiser, three times as long as an old American Supercarrier, dipped into the water, touched, struck, and stabilized. “Initial landing complete... Hydrofoil surfaces in water contact. Speed is six hundred kilometers an hour and decreasing.”
“Maintain hydrofoil operation regimen,” Frilasuia ordered, before keying the hotlink to central battery director. “Guns, stand by for missile-profile surface engagement.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
Ten minutes later the Jhuris entered range and the taskforce gave her everything they had left. It wasn't much, considering the nuclear warheads had been largely expended at land and space targets and the conventional missiles bounced harmlessly off the doubled-shields of the hydrofoil-operating big Taloran cruiser as she sped toward the taskforce at 500kmh.
At the same time, Frilasuia began to broadcast a message she'd pre-recorded, again and again in a continuous loop. “Admiral Benington, this is Captain itl Urasalia of the Taloran cruiser Jhuris. We can fight you wherever we are. I will be approaching your task-force soon and when I come into visual range if you aren't flying white flags I'll destroy you. Keep firing at me, but it will just demonstrate the futility of further resistance.”
And the fleet did salvo off their full missile stocks remaining, the nukes of the Jhuris' interceptor batteries dealing with most, and most of the rest falling to the flechette cannon. Finally they were thirty kilometers off and closing fast, and the enemy fire had ceased.
“Bring us down to the surface,” Frilasuia instructed. Speed fell off, and the Jhuris gradually lowered herself down into the water until she was floating with two-thirds of her hull submerged in the seas of Gilead. The process took several kilometers of forward progress to complete and by that point she could see the taskforce ahead, also slowing, having seen the transition from the hydrofoil mode to the surface that the cruiser had accomplished.
“Full magnification on the outer sensors, let's see if they've surrendered and finished this silly business...”
Suddenly the Jhuris was thrown violently to port and her decks swamped through and through while a huge blossoming sphere of water rose out of the ocean and thoroughly drenched the cruiser as the tremendous shockwave produced unimaginable sheer and shock inside. Electronics were shattered and crewers were very lucky, indeed, to be secured in for battle. The Jhuris would have capsized if it was a normal ship; of course the gravitic stabilizers avoided this, but in trying to counteract the huge pressure in the sea they threw the crew right back in the direction they'd just been jostled from.
“Heavy shock damage!” Damage control central reported immediately, and unwantedly. “We've got buckling of armour plates around frames sixteen and two eighty-one.”
“What was that?” Frilasuia snapped, ignoring the damage reports for the moment. But then a series of additional powerful impacts washed over the ship's shielding, rocking her in the water, though far less severely than before.
“A submerged nuclear mine, Captain! And now they're hitting us with nuclear artillery shells: They're only in the range of a few hundred kilotons but they've got a lot of them.”
So much for the idea that we could get them to surrender...
The bow of the Jhuris was thrown out of the water by another huge explosion and several lower sensor blisters on the hull were stove-in by the power of the nuclear detonation which threw up an enormous column all around them. “Full stop!” Frilasuia shouted, only then realizing they must be in the hydrological equivalent of a minefield. “Use gravitic thrusters to make us exactly hold position.” It was a very unpleasant realization...
...But the enemy fleet was still in range. She flicked the hotlink. “Guns, take them apart. And... Start firing the ventral turrets, flak-bursts at one kilometer.”
“Understood, Captain. Commencing main battery fire..” The gunnery officer didn't know the purpose for the second order, but Frilasuia had remembered something else about nautical warfare...
...Fortunately just in time to utterly annihilate the first salvo of nuclear torpedoes fired against the Jhuris. Those might have done some actual serious damage to the ship if they had been allowed direct impacts against the lower submerged hull.
Then the main guns opened up. The result was ghastly. The taskforce had consisted of two amphibious assault ships, thirteen nuclear missile cruisers, eleven destroyers, eight frigates, and twenty-six FACs. The first salvo of charged particle cannon fire from the two forward turrets, four bolts dead on target, simply utterly destroyed one of the amphibious assault ships. A cruiser was destroyed by the salvo of the aft turrets. Within five seconds another salvo finished off the section amphibious assault ship and another cruiser. Then another salvo, and two cruisers were gone. The next salvo smashed a frigate and two destroyers. The hulks were left steaming, burning, reduced to the water-line by the fire tearing through and vapourizing half of what was above, or in the case of the larger ships, simply smashed and cracked clean in two, sinking quickly or rolling off, hulls bent and twisted like jacknives.
Another salvo was got off that blew up a cluster of six FACs and took out another cruiser even as the remaining nuclear torpedoes proved unable to get through the barrier of continuously roiling steam and vapourized sea from the flak bursts of the ventral turrets. In contrast, the kiloton range nuclear shells of the railguns on the enemy force proved completely unable to make a dent on the shields of the Jhuris despite the fact that dozens had hit.
By that point the surviving flag officer, a Commodore named Laura Wellin, was desperately broadcasting an all-frequency surrender message.
“Cease-fire, cease-fire!” Frilasuia shouted, staving off another murderous salvo—and then, a moment later she realized that the order had been general: “Flak-bursts at a half kilometre resume firing!” The order came just in time to resume the destruction of the incoming torpedoes, and the firing was maintained for another fifteen minutes until Commodore Wellin had confirmed that all the expended 'fish' had been destroyed or deactivated.
Three thousand Gilean sailors had been killed in less than a minute. The Jhuris had sixty-seven wounded and none killed. Despite the botched effort to make the Taskforce give in peaceful, the example worked. The remaining Gilean wet-navy ships all surrendered over the course of the next day, now that their commanders had seen that the international force could fight them in a way that they understood—and still come out with a handy victory without a single loss.
It was humiliating, and at this point, fighting out of honour and pride, humiliation proved a far more effective way to obtain their surrenders than any kind of rational calculation of force ever could, proving the silly instructions to the Jhuris to be most far-sighted in fact, once looked at in retrospect. This, however, made Frilasuia no happier for the risk that she felt her ship had been unnecessarily subjected to, but orders were orders, and once the taskforce had deactivated the minefield the Jhuris safely returned to her proper home in space, well clear of the mess on the planet before.
DAY 49,
Kalunda,
On the Siege Lines.
Warleader Erqui and the Ubar Ikmen sat in a private room of their command bunker. Only one of Ikmen's prized kajira was with them, laying across his feet to warm them in the chill of the underground position. It was evening, and the two men were planning the final leg of operations on the south bank of the river.
“Do you think we can seize the bridges? If we do, the whole city might fall to us. It's certainly lightly defended on the north bank,” Ikmen opined as he studied a model of the layout of the city.
“I don't think we can, Your Excellency, but we will certainly try,” Erqui answered. “We have three very small enemy pockets left to reduce, and a division concentrated against each, with another one in reserve. All our other forces remaining on the south bank are concentrated against the Quay or the Warehouse. We should have ten divisions to shift over the river just as we've been shifting the other forces that were to the south of the river... The bulk of our troops are already to the north, and the main assault is planned in that direction.
“But three divisions in reserve is still a powerful force, and if we seize the bridges intact they could indeed make considerable gains which might see large swathes of the city come under our control. And the three divisions to seize the bridges should.. Not suffer casualties as to render them incapable of further combat operations. We can also go on the defensive around the Quay and pull all the troops off from the Warehouse and reinforce any gains across the river with another three divisions that way.”
“You're only planning on leaving a single division south of the river if we don't gain the bridges? But they'll be facing a corps,” the Ubar objected. “Which division is it, anyway?”
“The Ar Division, Your Excellency.”
Ikmen visibly winced. “No. Take one of your own off the Quay forces if you must. The Ar Division is my country's last hope.”
“And mine is marching to meet the Cartagenean corps and reinforce General Rulos' stand against a foe with powers that we can scarcely conceive of. You must make the sacrifice; they are the only division in all of our armies which can contain defensively even a weakened Kalundan corps for the period of time required for us to finish reducing the rest of the city. The final assault to the north will be made three days from tomorrow, regardless of the success in seizing the bridges or not.”
“A bitter pill to swallow,” Tarl Ikmen answered with a sigh, rubbing his feet up against the warm body of his kajira, who moaned from it in misplaced effort to improve his mood. He just ignored her, gazing at the asiatic face of the Warleader before him, and trying to discern the man's thoughts.
“Can we take the city? We will have besieged it for fifty-three days by the time of this great attack that you plan.”
“We can. But if we fail that day, we have no choice but to go on the defensive. We will not have the power, nor the time, for another grand assault. For the moment, the enemy's airpower has not returned to bother us. It is busy elsewhere. That means that we have a very good chance of succeeding, if we can launch the attack before their aircraft return. And that means soon. If they are there to provide support.. Well, we must roll the dice, and see if we win or lose it all. There is no chance of retreating now; we will be annihilated from above.”
“I understand. Then launch the attacks tomorrow with the utmost vigour and surprise. Wait until the afternoon, I should think, we tend to attack in the morning to have as much light as possible for the battle to come. But they have gotten used to that, and it may provide more surprise to hold off on the attack until later, when the defenders may have convinced themselves that an attack is not coming, and will let their guard down.”
“A very sensible suggestion, Your Excellency. I will issue the appropriate orders immediately.”
“Go, and do so.”
After the Warleader had left, Tarl pushed his chair back and stood with the help of the table, looking down at the prostrate kajira draped across his feet. She had gone without pleasure for far to long, as these last weeks of the siege had sapped Tarl's desire for sex with his girls. While the men might go wild with pent-up sexual energy, he just the will to do anything as he realized the utter severity of his nation's situation.
“My girl.... You will know pleasure again, but I fear not from my hands.” He walked off, leaving her sobbing in horror at the dread prospect that offered, her life having never had a frame of reference save as a slave, and her teenaged and adult lives, no frame of reference save as his slave. But even the slaves attached to the army, now, were beginning to realize that this might change. For them, it was like the whole world had been turned upside-down, and their place in it was being lost.
For the men, they.. They fought with the desperation of the damned.
DAY 50,
Near East Port.
The Duchess of Medina was up early in the morning, as she usually was, well in advance of her family on a particularly important day like this, and dining alone to compose her thoughts in advance of the battle to come. It was still in the pre-dawn darkness, and the assault would take place in only a few hours. That she could win, she was certain of. The question was how to minimize casualties...
And the ruminations on that were what distracted her while she ate her meal until one of her aides arrived, and in fact walked right up to her, completely ignored, or unnoticed. He bowed deeply. “Your Grace, forgive me, but the commander of the Devenshirite light brigade is here and wishes to see you in person.”
“Ahh..!?” Frayuia glanced up, ears flexing. “Odd. He's already inside the command vehicle?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Then send him in. At once.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
Frayuia downed her dhpou in a solid slug of the drinking to get some warmth in her before facing this, and soon enough the man, in the uniform of a Devenshirite Colonel, now breveted to Brigadier, arrived and came to attention, offering a respectful salute.
“Brigadier Calhoun, I believe?”
“That's correct, Your Grace.”
“Please, have a seat...” She leaned over to grab the intercom handpiece off the wall to order up another breakfast, but he waved her off as he sat.
“Please, Your Grace, I want this to be made swift and succinct. I want you to arrest the commander of the armoured train force, the so-called 'General Arshon'. She's a wanted criminal on Devenshire.”
Frayuia started for a moment, her ears rigidly erect, and stared over at Calhoun. “Praytell, Brigadier, you realize that this, several hours before a major engagement, is an utterly inopportune time to make such a request?”
“Yes, but it is very urgency, Your Grace, lest it be found out by her and give her a chance to escape.”
“Well, she is in the service of a member of the Taloran nobility, and I will bluntly say that as a hired hand of my good friend's, I will not let you do a thing to her unless you provide a careful explanation justifying such measures. Immediately.”
The Brigadier took a breath and wiped some cold sweat from his brow. “Fair enough, Your Grace. I wouldn't expect anything less, I suppose...” And so he began. “General Arshon's real name, Your Grace, is Priscilla Laurentii—sometimes Priscilla Anderson, the name of the family that raised her. She is the illegitimate daughter of the Grand Duke of Pranton, the ethnic Arab Grand Duchy of the old Kingdom of Devenshire. Her father was His Grace the Grand Duke Johnathan Laurentii, the twelfth Grand Duke of Pranton, the Impaler of al-Cowhar.”
“The Impaler of al-Cowhar?”
“Eleven hundred revolting slaves impaled alive at his order,” the Brigadier answered. “Along with numerous other crimes, including gross sexual abuse of slaves and an extreme profilgancy which led to criminal skimming off the provincial budget which nearly got him charged under the old government. He was an exceptionally corrupt and evil man, the old Grand Duke.
“Priscilla was his daughter by one of his slaves, a girl who was only eleven at the time, twelve when she gave birth. Normally such a child would be raised as a slave, never knowing the exalted height of their blood. That was the typical and ruthless way of the Old Nobility in dealing with the results of their 'excesses'. But the old Grand Duke had a sympathetic streak toward her for some reason or another, and gave her as a foundling to the Anders family of steadholders, small-farming yeomanry who managed to ecke out an existence outside of the slave system.
“Now, you might at this point wonder what the fuss is. She should, be rights, be exactly the sort of person who was important in the post-collapse reconstruction, with ties on both sides of the fence,” Calhoun took another deep breath. “But during the uprisings as the Plymouthite forces advanced into Pranton province, she committed an act for which the locals call her, in the fashion of her father, the Butcher of umm-Karshash.”
“What did she do, Brigadier? You've provided the backstory. Just tell me.”
“The Ducal Palace was overwhelmed by the uprising, and the Grand Duke along with a few of his guards and hangers-on fled to the army barracks where he knew Priscilla was stationed. He'd helped her into the military as an officer, and she was a Captain at the time, serving as a Company commander and doubling as the executive officer of the local battalion. Being very popular with the troops in the area, she seized control of the battalion when the battalion Major vascillated on the idea of surrendering, and posted a strong guard.
“When her father came to see her, he came with the documents, and the DNA information, proving their relationship. She had at that point the chance to repudiate the evil of her family... Or join it. And she chose to join it. She embraced him, as the accounts of the slaves who cleaned the barracks go, and immediately organized a breakout attempt. In the breakout that happened, the liberated slaves tried to stop the battalion from reaching a light cruiser which had been down for repairs in the small shipyard in the city of umm-Karshash, which was going to try and take off and make a break for it.
“With such a force blocking her way, Priscilla, sheltering the Grand Duke in her command vehicle, led her APCs and tanks to massacre the escaped slaves. Nearly four thousand were killed and a square mile of the city's shanty-towns set on fire while Priscilla broke through in a hard fight to reach the light cruiser and get aboard with her forces, and her father. They blasted clear and shot their way through the Plymouthite blockade, the cruiser being nearly mortally damaged in the process.
“We never did track them down. Johnathan had enough resources, the old bastard, to always stay one step ahead of the law and every bounty hunter we could send after him. He finally died in the little two-planet Republic of Oranje you've probably never heard of before. Priscilla gave him a burial there and then disappeared. We found his grave, exhumed him, confirmed it was him, and reburied him—hoping she'd come back—but she never did. She took the money he still had stashed in hidden bank accounts and disappeared.
“But here she is, working as a merc commander whom the Princess Jhayka inadvertantly hired. And a General in the International Forces that you command. There's no doubt that it's her. I confirmed her appearence with visual recognition software. She's right in our hands, someone as vile as the Normans themselves. A wanted criminal, and you can deliver her to justice immediately..”
“But I won't.”
Brigadier Calhoun stared at Frayuia in shock. He stuttered for a moment, and cleared his throat. “Your Grace, you've heard all of this—why not?”
“Have you ever heard of the concept of filial piety?”
The brevet Brigadier stopped short, and took a moment to carefully think his way through the answer. “I.. I believe so. You're saying it's a noble act to protect one's father at any cost?”
“Not just that, but how much of this did she really know? Did she know her mother was an extreme minor by human standards? Did she know that her father was a brutal rapist who indulged in torture? Or was his only public crime the execution of those who had revolted against the lawful authority placed over them, as a natural part of his duties? And could an officer possibly be thought immoral for thinking such a thing acceptable, if perhaps distasteful?
“Tell me, Brigadier, how many offiers of the Army, who still serve now, thought that way?”
She was rewarded with silence, and it was telling that she was on the right track in this discussion. “She had just met her birth father for the first time. She was supposed to hand him into an outraged mob to be torn limb from limb, before she had even got his mettle? Brigadier, I won't have her arrested because I would have done the same thing myself. And, just perhaps, that is because I am an alien rather than a human. But I see here simply an impossible circumstance, in which she got her men clear at any price, and her father with them.
“What happened to her foster family?”
“They were killed at the hands of a mob,” Calhoun admitted quietly.
“And her mother?”
“I don't know. It isn't easily available in the fact records of the case that I researched when the sighting was first suspected in the media reports.”
Frayuia nodded. “Well, you have before you, at least, an example of the fact that she lost all she ever knew, due to her single effort to try and reach out to the parent she never knew that she'd had. I don't think that is immoral. Just pitiable. And she is under the Princess Jhayka's protection for the moment.
“What that means is that you may ask the Princess Jhayka. No-one else. I will retain her at her post, and you will speak nothing of this, until the Princess Jhayka has been informed... Preferably, personally by Her Majesty Queen Minerva or someone else of suitable rank to speak with a noblewoman on matters of honour. I will tell none of it to Arshon—to Priscilla Laurentii—so that you may have the chance to make what entreaties as you think are suitable.
“But insomuch as the writ of Taloran law runs here by force of my presence if nothing else, she will remain free, and in command. Is that understood, Brigadier?”
Calhoun nodded grimly. “Very well. But the nation has understandably wanted her for a long time. Pranton is rebellious...”
“And a woman of noble blood is to become a sacrifice to appease their rebelliousness?”
“I wouldn't put it that way, Your Grace. Her father's behaviour scarcely warrants the term nobility...”
“Blood is blood. And those same mobs who I presume clamour for her now, are the ones who killed her foster parents, who had done nothing at all, save the morally commendable act of the raising of a foundling. I will give her asylum in the Imperial Starfleet before I turn her over to such a fate, or even to a jury comprised of such a mob, if nominally lawful. Refer this to your Sovereign, or some other legally constituted authority, and do not trouble me with it again. You may trouble Her Highness the Princess Jhayka with it, when you see her in person in the city of Kalunda. Until then, bear your knowledge with silence. Is that understood?”
“I understand, Your Grace.”
“Then return to your unit at once, Brigadier, and prepare them for action! We have wasted enough time on this matter. You are dismissed.”
DAY 50,
Inside Kalunda.
In addition to the two great foot and vehicle bridges across the Kalunda River, there was the huge iron girder lift bridge of the interior rail line. All three of these bridges were to be assaulted generally by forces greatly in excess of the strength of their defenders. The pockets around each bridge had been reduced to about a regiment apiece over the night, except the one defended by Trajan's advanced battalion, where only that force proved more than sufficient to hold the bridge.
These bridges had connected the city, provided its prosperity. They had homes built onto them, long since evacuated, and they'd survived untouched, especially the old bridge, even the last siege. They were the lifeblood of the city, and now they were being rigged to blow. There was no question of launching a counterattack, and no question of holding out until relief with the remaining garrisons on the far side.
From the tunnels under the south bank of the river they were bringing everyone they could, all those who could still be moved. A few very sick were not evacuated in time, and they were given grenades. They could reach the towers of the bridges and make their way across under sporadic fire. A few of these civilians were killed. But by morning the last of them had been evacuated. Now there were scarcely six thousand Kalundan soldiers holding the perimeters around the bridges. It was time to evacuate them, too, but it would have to be done carefully, and only when the explosives had been properly placed. That would take several additional hours of work.
The exception was with the railroad bridge. It could easily be raised up to prevent the enemy from crossing. There was just the matter of getting all the soldiers across at once, and for that purpose a train consisting of elderly passenger cars was pushed by a switcher engine forward, with several of the cars, the last ones or more precisely those closest to the enemy, being armoured after an improvised fashion, mostly scrap iron wielded onto them. In the dawn's light the train was pushed all the way forward, and quickly attracted the attention of the Stirlin division in the circle around the regimental position.
As the regiment was shifted to board the train, and the men advanced along it from diaphram to diaphram, the cars forming a bridge across the rails to the other side, the opposite end of the train was soon brought under an intensive fire. Nothing more could be done, however, as the orders not to attack yet were strict, and the division commander was left in a desperate effort to get orders from Erqui to launch the attack early. In the meantime, an orderly fighting evacuation proceeded apace.
With the evacuation of the regiment finishing, the Stirlin division finally got permission to attack. It overran most of the area immediately, and the men made a dash for the train, which was already on fire from the sustained weaponry directed against it, the last of the defenders trying to get aboard and work themselves away from the burning cars. With an order, the train lurched into backwards motion, and the platoon or so worth of men who had not escaped, or at least got on board, had to run for it.
Close on their heels were the lead Stirlins. Ironically, the fact that the last cars were burning provided a deterrent for them to gain the cars as a means across the bridge, and the train was moving fairly slow, so that the platoon's worth of men could, by a dashing sprint, leap aboard just ahead of the flames. Yet in this process half of them were shot down, and a few more failed to make it aboard, and made for the bank that they might drift down with the current to one of the other pockets. As they started to roll across the bridge, the men in the last car realized that the best thing they could do now was to unhitch the burning coaches right where they were, and in doing so left a flaming mass of wrecked cars on the bridge, to burn through the ties and create a barrier quite impassable until the train had cleared the track.
On doing so, the drawbridge was brought up at once, and with its raising, one of the three pockets had been more or less successfully evacuated. Yet the city was scarcely out of danger, and more than thirty-five hundred soldiers were still in a situation of severe risk. For the support of the remaining regiment, the last armoured vehicles of Kalunda, five assault guns and two armoured personnel carriers, were sent forward to provide an armoured cover for their retreat. Trajan's power armour battalion would have to arrange their own retreat, and rely on their armour to remain safe in closing the low and old stone bridge. There were no more resources to send.
“Il... Ilavna..?” The voice was trembling and weak. The eyes did not open. But that Jhayka had spoken was very clear. She was awakening.
The girl 'heard' her from several rooms away, attuned to the sense of her Liege's mind, and came dashing. The first thing she did, though, was to check all the readouts, and confirm that it was quite safe and normal for Jhayka to be waking up. “I had expected you'd be unconscious longer,” Ilavna offered with a smile. “But you're very strong.”
“Did you... Take care of.... The Stirlin Brigadier?”
“She's under house arrest in your private apartment, Your Highness. Untouched and never interrogated.”
“Good. She was kind to me when I needed it most. I will make her life a comfortable one... If we live.”
“We will live,” Ilavna answered sharply, and then, stepped closer and smiled down to Jhayka. “Your Highness, a friend of your's is very close by.”
“Who?” Jhayka finally opened her eyes, but they were glazed over and unfocused without the real will to make herself see.
“The Duchess of Medina commands the relief expedition. It has arrived and landed, they took East Port yesterday, I understand. They must have started driving inland to relieve us this very morning.”
“Mmmf. Frayuia Risim. Something ironic in that old puritan coming to my rescue, though I love her dearly...” She couldn't even muster the strength to laugh.
But suddenly her eyes focused with some intensity. “What's the situation of the city?”
“A battalion is holding the Sackon Warehouse, that we rescued you from. Across the barge canal, the big Quay is held by a single corps. The rest of the forces are on the north bank.. There the allies have made no progress. But they've overrun the south bank, Your Highness. The railroad bridge has been lifted and the forces there evacuated.. All the civilians were taken out, the very last, over last night. But Trajan's battalion holds one, and a regiment with some armour the other, of the two road bridges.”
“When are they to be blown?”
“I don't think until a careful retreat has been planned, or perhaps if the enemy presses hard...”
“..Blow them...” Jhayka ordered. “As soon as can be done. The rear-guard can be evacuated by Danielle's ships....” A moment of terror clenched the Taloran through and through. “Danielle is alright, yes?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Thank the Lord, who is Just. She does not deserve to fall here.”
“He is all justice, Your Highness,” Ilavna agreed readily. “And I am sure the two of you will reconcile your places in all due time, when the siege is over. Do you want me to bring Danielle to you? I am sure it would make feel much better...”
But Jhayka cut her off: “No. Danielle is needed. Blow the bridges. This is the last use of the fleet.... Evacuate the rearguards by boat, after the bridges are gone. Dani must see to that...”
Jhayka lapsed back into unconsciousness, and the worried Ilavna Lashila spent several minutes checking to make sure all the readings were correct and in the normal levels. They were: She had simply exhausted herself already.
Heeding Jhayka's last instructions before unconsciousness, Ilavna dashed off to find the Admiral of the much reduced river flotilla of the nation of Kalunda. Her advice would matter more in the councils of War in the city, now, than her's could hope to. And that would, hopefully, be enough to avert whatever fear gripped Jhayka at the information she'd been told.
Some are by me, some by Marina, and I'm sure our writing styles differ enough for you to tell.
Kalunda, Gilead
DAY 48
The burning in Amber's left side was gone now, and she laid in the hospital bed that she had noticed on and off while slumbering, dressed in a hospital gown. She opened her eyes and saw the underground hospital room once more. Monitors around her beeped and did their thing, assuring the nurses outside that she was alive.
She looked up and looked into a pair of lovely emerald eyes. Dani looked down at Amber, wearing - most strangely - an easily-removed green silk band around her breasts and a similar skirt around her hips. She smiled at Amber and said, "Awake yet, tiger?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you to wake up, silly. So I could do this." And with that Dani kissed her full on the mouth. Amber couldn't move enough to resist, and deep down she didn't want to. She let Dani's tongue slip into her mouth and touched it with her own, enjoying Dani's taste.
The amazingly beautiful woman slipped onto the bed, barely breaking the kiss, and her hands traveled to Amber's gown, pulling it open and gently touching Amber's breasts. Amber's hands went up to take Dani's face at the cheeks, holding her closer for another kiss. After this Dani's head moved downward, her tongue moving along Amber's neck. "Oh Dani...." Amber moaned.
"Dani?"
The voice cut through Amber's dream like a blade. Her eyes opened again and she was in the same room, in the same bed, but instead of Dani's luscious, barely-clothed body it was her very-clothed, uniformed sister Sarina. She looked at Amber with one of her "Just what the hell are you thinking?" looks of curiosity. "Feeling better?"
"I was, until you rudely interrupted me," Amber mumbled.
"Ah, it was that kind of dream. I thought you were picking up your breath a bit." Sarina smiled sarcastically. "Well, the docs said you're okay..."
"What... what happened?"
"You won, mission successful, et cetera. The Marshal's life was saved by surgery, though she still hasn't woken up. Dani's alive and well, but unfortunately for you she's still in love with Jhayka and won't be coming by any time soon..." Sarina's smile was now that of teasing. "I'd ask for the sexy details but some of your sexual fantasies frankly disturb me, Sister."
Amber mock-frowned at Sarina. "Oh, you're asking for it. And I'll make sure the Baroness gives it to you the next time you're in her tender mercies."
"Unlike some female members of this family, sister, I have never been bound by a lover," Sarina responded with a smirk. "Another bit of good news, Sister, is that the International Forces have already made contact with us and will be landing in the next few days, perhaps even tonight."
Amber heard that news and a wide smile crossed her face. After all this time, I had begun to lose hope! "Then maybe we'll survive all of this?"
"Yes," Sarina replied. "I think we all will."
"That's.... good to hear, Sister, good to hear." Amber took her hand. "Now, can you please get me something to eat and drink? I'm famished!"
"Oh, just give it a minute, but then I must be getting back to duty. With the Marshal incapacitated I've been given more duties, as His Majesty has been forced to take direct command for the time being and my services as Chief of Staff are invaluable to him."
"Well, then, Sister, I won't hold you back from duty to His Majesty. Please arrange for the nurses to send me something, and then go back to work. I'll talk to you later."
Sarina nodded at that. "Later then, sister." She promptly left.
DAY 49,
QUANZHI AREA
AND POINTS EAST.
The steady blossoms of detonating nuclear weaponry lit up the sky around the port city as dozens of airbursts lit off. Craters were dug by the powerful energy bolts and railgun shots of the orbiting dreadnoughts, and volleys of missiles dug deep and annihilated the defences around the city. Cruise missiles dived under the defensive shielding, though most of them were shot down. A few got through, however, and their nuclear events proved sufficient to disable many of the disabling weaponry. Even far to the north around the capitol of Cranstonville there were numerous events.
Gilead had never invested in extensive shelters, and the result was that tens of thousands of civilians were already dead or dying from the bombardment. The arrival of aerospace fighters as the defences were attrited only increased the scale of the devastation, and working under the shields where the cruise missiles had disabled many of the defensive batteries they succeeded in knocking down the remaining theatre shields around Quanzhi. The only ones left were those around Cranstonville itself.
In all, the preparations for the landings had only taken six hours and the expenditure of about a hundred nuclear devices per hour over that period of time, along with a few hundred multi-megaton level cannon shots from the orbiting ships. Final civilian fatalities for the attacks would probably level off at one hundred thousand or so, and would mainly be the fault of the Gilean government for deciding to resist when they'd never invested in a major shelter programme. By this time nukes were very smart indeed, and with dial-a-yield and limited fallout, collateral casualties could be kept to a minimum, and the very weak and incomplete theatre shields over Quanzhi and Cranstonville had proved a minimal disruption in the overall operations. Only twenty-three aerospace fighters were lost.
There was no reason to delay the landings any further. They were planned for an area seven hundred kilometers east of Quanzhi, where the open plains of the central interior would, unlike with the coastal mountain ranges, allow for an unimpeded and sweeping crescent manoeuvre to carry the international forces into Cranstonville. Quanzhi itself, its defences destroyed, would not be directly attacked, nor would the forces around it and to the north of it, two corps in all, be assailed, in hopes that they would be lured out to rush to the aide of the capitol where thery could be more easily destroyed. These units amounted to about 300,000 men counting the remnants of the Quanzhi militia which had elected to fight for the new regime.
The force that was directly positioned facing the route of advance for the International forces consisted of eleven corps and some associated units, amounting to 1.5 million men after attrition in the civil war and the arrival of fresh replacements, which until recently had been fighting each other, four of them being rebel formations who had battled de la Hoya. They were suspicious of each other, and the new regime in Cranstonville was unpopular. Coordination was not good and their stocks of reasonably modern equipment had been exhausted in the internicine fighting.
Against them was arrayed two Slavian corps, one mechanized and one armoured, two Hispanic corps, the same, two British corps, one French corps, an Alliance corps, a Taloran corps short one brigade, a Habsburg division, a Catilinian Marine brigade, and a Devenshirite Marine brigade, around 1,350,000 troops in all. These were the forces which were now being landed on the flat farmland. The heavy landing ships burned the ground and set crops on fire as they settled down, and countless hovertanks and APCs, supply vehicles and hover-barges loaded with equipment, were soon being continuously offloaded.
Theatre shields and anti-missile missiles and energy weaponry were immediately established to defend against nuclear missile attacks by the Gilean defensive forces, which were not long in coming. Seventy missiles were fired at the landing site in twenty minutes, but only one of them got through, and the light 700kT warhead detonated several hundred meters from the nearest landing craft group, far enough that though they were crippled, there were only 18 fatalities, all in the British group that had been conducting the landings in that sector.
Around, most of the farmhouses had been abandoned by the families which had lived in them, fleeing, hiding anywhere they could. This was a modern area, and most of them had gone up into the woods in their trucks to take shelter until the storm had passed. In a few cases the officers of the international forces had walked into a country breakfast which was still warm, and enjoyed it where the prior inhabitants had not, bedding down in their homes before they'd have to move on the next day, leaving some money of a dozen nations behind as the payment the laws of war required.
Huge hovertanks were deployed defensively toward the enemy. They were up to 250 tonnes for the largest Taloran models, and the enemy had 150 tonne tracked tanks which, though nominally modern, were much inferior in all respects. The number of tanks between the two forces was also about even, heightening the disparity, and of course the Gilean Air Force had utterly ceased to exist, leaving the international forces to control the skies entirely.
Though the international forces were for the moment supporting the landings, by late the next day a concerted air campaign against the defending Gilean Army was being planned to annihilate it, or drive it out of its defensive positions, while the international forces raised to be into position to launch a vigorous assault the moment they had suffered enough, or otherwise work their way around the enemy's positions by the advantage of their much faster manoeuvring speed, and the fact that the Gilean Army moving from its defensive positions would expose it to a massed air campaign.
Even standing firm, the air campaign would take its toll sooner or later. The sustained assault would entail thousands and thousands of sorties every day while the ships in orbit rained fire down on the theatre shields. It would be possible to commence the moment that the landing forces had been entirely landed, and by evening of the next day the advance on Cranstonville would begin, with nearly three million soldiers clashing to determine the fate of the capitol of the Confederacy over a vast tract of rolling farmland rather larger than Nebraska.
With the Gilean Army so heavily outgunned and the skies dominated by the international forces, the evaluations of its commanders were extremely bleak. It seemed that only Covington and his closest circle retained any real hope of throwing back the international troops, but the President and his junta persisted, and the honour of the Gilean Armed Forces demanded the fight be sustained 'till the last resource had been thoroughly exhausted.
DAY 49,
off East Port.
Initially the Gilean taskforce off of East Port had been ignored. After all, they were not involved in any attacks on the landing force, and they were moving off, away from the city. Then Covington had demanded of Admiral Benington, the overall commander of the Taskforce, to attack the Duchess of Medina's relieving army. A desultory effort with nuclear tipped cruise missiles had proved ineffective, but it had caught the attention of the fleet in orbit. Rather than try to pot at the ships from orbit, however, it was hoped to compel their surrender by a more impressive display of overwhelming force.
The Taloran Heavy Cruiser Jhuris had been selected for the operation, primarily because essentially all Taloran ships were designed to make surface landings on water. Captain the Baroness Frilasuia itl Urasalia thought the whole plan was a bit pointless, but she could understand the humanitarian effort it represented. According, the Jhuris descended into the atmosphere, covered by the guns of the fleet and escorted by J'u'crea type assault boats.
As she did the remaining defensive batteries of the Gilean army in the area which could bear on the ship salvoed off braces of nuclear missiles at her. The weapons of the fleet in orbit and the J'u'crea's engaged the incoming missiles, shooting most of them down in fast-paced intercepts with nuclear events flashing the sky brighter than a dozen suns as a series of them staggered out over the blue of the ocean. Some of the missiles got through, however...
And that's where the nuclear-tipped anti-missile missiles of the Jhuris went into action, throwing up dozens of staggered and even interlocking fusion events which slashed through the incoming interceptors. Their real purpose in sending me down was to act as bait for the Gilean defensive missiles, Frilasuia mused sarcastically to herself, strapped into the command acceleration couch on the bridge of the Jhuris as the battle was fought.
“Interceptor range!”
Frilasuia watched the holo-plot as the last three missiles were chopped to bits by the flechette cannons. They were now only one kilometer off the water surface and dropping fast. “How close are we to entering the enemy's ship-to-ship missile range, Uras?” She queried to the ship's Astrogator.
“Approximately sixty kilometers, Captain.”
“Helm, institute landing protocols!”
“Landing protocols.. Commencing, Aye,” the helmsman responded, the ship now being readied for water touch-down, the ventral gun turrets swinging to present their streamlined rear casings ahead to prevent the development of friction, though they would not initially touch down.
“Bring us down!”
Instead, as the ship slowed to just below mach speed, the fins of the big cruiser, three times as long as an old American Supercarrier, dipped into the water, touched, struck, and stabilized. “Initial landing complete... Hydrofoil surfaces in water contact. Speed is six hundred kilometers an hour and decreasing.”
“Maintain hydrofoil operation regimen,” Frilasuia ordered, before keying the hotlink to central battery director. “Guns, stand by for missile-profile surface engagement.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
Ten minutes later the Jhuris entered range and the taskforce gave her everything they had left. It wasn't much, considering the nuclear warheads had been largely expended at land and space targets and the conventional missiles bounced harmlessly off the doubled-shields of the hydrofoil-operating big Taloran cruiser as she sped toward the taskforce at 500kmh.
At the same time, Frilasuia began to broadcast a message she'd pre-recorded, again and again in a continuous loop. “Admiral Benington, this is Captain itl Urasalia of the Taloran cruiser Jhuris. We can fight you wherever we are. I will be approaching your task-force soon and when I come into visual range if you aren't flying white flags I'll destroy you. Keep firing at me, but it will just demonstrate the futility of further resistance.”
And the fleet did salvo off their full missile stocks remaining, the nukes of the Jhuris' interceptor batteries dealing with most, and most of the rest falling to the flechette cannon. Finally they were thirty kilometers off and closing fast, and the enemy fire had ceased.
“Bring us down to the surface,” Frilasuia instructed. Speed fell off, and the Jhuris gradually lowered herself down into the water until she was floating with two-thirds of her hull submerged in the seas of Gilead. The process took several kilometers of forward progress to complete and by that point she could see the taskforce ahead, also slowing, having seen the transition from the hydrofoil mode to the surface that the cruiser had accomplished.
“Full magnification on the outer sensors, let's see if they've surrendered and finished this silly business...”
Suddenly the Jhuris was thrown violently to port and her decks swamped through and through while a huge blossoming sphere of water rose out of the ocean and thoroughly drenched the cruiser as the tremendous shockwave produced unimaginable sheer and shock inside. Electronics were shattered and crewers were very lucky, indeed, to be secured in for battle. The Jhuris would have capsized if it was a normal ship; of course the gravitic stabilizers avoided this, but in trying to counteract the huge pressure in the sea they threw the crew right back in the direction they'd just been jostled from.
“Heavy shock damage!” Damage control central reported immediately, and unwantedly. “We've got buckling of armour plates around frames sixteen and two eighty-one.”
“What was that?” Frilasuia snapped, ignoring the damage reports for the moment. But then a series of additional powerful impacts washed over the ship's shielding, rocking her in the water, though far less severely than before.
“A submerged nuclear mine, Captain! And now they're hitting us with nuclear artillery shells: They're only in the range of a few hundred kilotons but they've got a lot of them.”
So much for the idea that we could get them to surrender...
The bow of the Jhuris was thrown out of the water by another huge explosion and several lower sensor blisters on the hull were stove-in by the power of the nuclear detonation which threw up an enormous column all around them. “Full stop!” Frilasuia shouted, only then realizing they must be in the hydrological equivalent of a minefield. “Use gravitic thrusters to make us exactly hold position.” It was a very unpleasant realization...
...But the enemy fleet was still in range. She flicked the hotlink. “Guns, take them apart. And... Start firing the ventral turrets, flak-bursts at one kilometer.”
“Understood, Captain. Commencing main battery fire..” The gunnery officer didn't know the purpose for the second order, but Frilasuia had remembered something else about nautical warfare...
...Fortunately just in time to utterly annihilate the first salvo of nuclear torpedoes fired against the Jhuris. Those might have done some actual serious damage to the ship if they had been allowed direct impacts against the lower submerged hull.
Then the main guns opened up. The result was ghastly. The taskforce had consisted of two amphibious assault ships, thirteen nuclear missile cruisers, eleven destroyers, eight frigates, and twenty-six FACs. The first salvo of charged particle cannon fire from the two forward turrets, four bolts dead on target, simply utterly destroyed one of the amphibious assault ships. A cruiser was destroyed by the salvo of the aft turrets. Within five seconds another salvo finished off the section amphibious assault ship and another cruiser. Then another salvo, and two cruisers were gone. The next salvo smashed a frigate and two destroyers. The hulks were left steaming, burning, reduced to the water-line by the fire tearing through and vapourizing half of what was above, or in the case of the larger ships, simply smashed and cracked clean in two, sinking quickly or rolling off, hulls bent and twisted like jacknives.
Another salvo was got off that blew up a cluster of six FACs and took out another cruiser even as the remaining nuclear torpedoes proved unable to get through the barrier of continuously roiling steam and vapourized sea from the flak bursts of the ventral turrets. In contrast, the kiloton range nuclear shells of the railguns on the enemy force proved completely unable to make a dent on the shields of the Jhuris despite the fact that dozens had hit.
By that point the surviving flag officer, a Commodore named Laura Wellin, was desperately broadcasting an all-frequency surrender message.
“Cease-fire, cease-fire!” Frilasuia shouted, staving off another murderous salvo—and then, a moment later she realized that the order had been general: “Flak-bursts at a half kilometre resume firing!” The order came just in time to resume the destruction of the incoming torpedoes, and the firing was maintained for another fifteen minutes until Commodore Wellin had confirmed that all the expended 'fish' had been destroyed or deactivated.
Three thousand Gilean sailors had been killed in less than a minute. The Jhuris had sixty-seven wounded and none killed. Despite the botched effort to make the Taskforce give in peaceful, the example worked. The remaining Gilean wet-navy ships all surrendered over the course of the next day, now that their commanders had seen that the international force could fight them in a way that they understood—and still come out with a handy victory without a single loss.
It was humiliating, and at this point, fighting out of honour and pride, humiliation proved a far more effective way to obtain their surrenders than any kind of rational calculation of force ever could, proving the silly instructions to the Jhuris to be most far-sighted in fact, once looked at in retrospect. This, however, made Frilasuia no happier for the risk that she felt her ship had been unnecessarily subjected to, but orders were orders, and once the taskforce had deactivated the minefield the Jhuris safely returned to her proper home in space, well clear of the mess on the planet before.
DAY 49,
Kalunda,
On the Siege Lines.
Warleader Erqui and the Ubar Ikmen sat in a private room of their command bunker. Only one of Ikmen's prized kajira was with them, laying across his feet to warm them in the chill of the underground position. It was evening, and the two men were planning the final leg of operations on the south bank of the river.
“Do you think we can seize the bridges? If we do, the whole city might fall to us. It's certainly lightly defended on the north bank,” Ikmen opined as he studied a model of the layout of the city.
“I don't think we can, Your Excellency, but we will certainly try,” Erqui answered. “We have three very small enemy pockets left to reduce, and a division concentrated against each, with another one in reserve. All our other forces remaining on the south bank are concentrated against the Quay or the Warehouse. We should have ten divisions to shift over the river just as we've been shifting the other forces that were to the south of the river... The bulk of our troops are already to the north, and the main assault is planned in that direction.
“But three divisions in reserve is still a powerful force, and if we seize the bridges intact they could indeed make considerable gains which might see large swathes of the city come under our control. And the three divisions to seize the bridges should.. Not suffer casualties as to render them incapable of further combat operations. We can also go on the defensive around the Quay and pull all the troops off from the Warehouse and reinforce any gains across the river with another three divisions that way.”
“You're only planning on leaving a single division south of the river if we don't gain the bridges? But they'll be facing a corps,” the Ubar objected. “Which division is it, anyway?”
“The Ar Division, Your Excellency.”
Ikmen visibly winced. “No. Take one of your own off the Quay forces if you must. The Ar Division is my country's last hope.”
“And mine is marching to meet the Cartagenean corps and reinforce General Rulos' stand against a foe with powers that we can scarcely conceive of. You must make the sacrifice; they are the only division in all of our armies which can contain defensively even a weakened Kalundan corps for the period of time required for us to finish reducing the rest of the city. The final assault to the north will be made three days from tomorrow, regardless of the success in seizing the bridges or not.”
“A bitter pill to swallow,” Tarl Ikmen answered with a sigh, rubbing his feet up against the warm body of his kajira, who moaned from it in misplaced effort to improve his mood. He just ignored her, gazing at the asiatic face of the Warleader before him, and trying to discern the man's thoughts.
“Can we take the city? We will have besieged it for fifty-three days by the time of this great attack that you plan.”
“We can. But if we fail that day, we have no choice but to go on the defensive. We will not have the power, nor the time, for another grand assault. For the moment, the enemy's airpower has not returned to bother us. It is busy elsewhere. That means that we have a very good chance of succeeding, if we can launch the attack before their aircraft return. And that means soon. If they are there to provide support.. Well, we must roll the dice, and see if we win or lose it all. There is no chance of retreating now; we will be annihilated from above.”
“I understand. Then launch the attacks tomorrow with the utmost vigour and surprise. Wait until the afternoon, I should think, we tend to attack in the morning to have as much light as possible for the battle to come. But they have gotten used to that, and it may provide more surprise to hold off on the attack until later, when the defenders may have convinced themselves that an attack is not coming, and will let their guard down.”
“A very sensible suggestion, Your Excellency. I will issue the appropriate orders immediately.”
“Go, and do so.”
After the Warleader had left, Tarl pushed his chair back and stood with the help of the table, looking down at the prostrate kajira draped across his feet. She had gone without pleasure for far to long, as these last weeks of the siege had sapped Tarl's desire for sex with his girls. While the men might go wild with pent-up sexual energy, he just the will to do anything as he realized the utter severity of his nation's situation.
“My girl.... You will know pleasure again, but I fear not from my hands.” He walked off, leaving her sobbing in horror at the dread prospect that offered, her life having never had a frame of reference save as a slave, and her teenaged and adult lives, no frame of reference save as his slave. But even the slaves attached to the army, now, were beginning to realize that this might change. For them, it was like the whole world had been turned upside-down, and their place in it was being lost.
For the men, they.. They fought with the desperation of the damned.
DAY 50,
Near East Port.
The Duchess of Medina was up early in the morning, as she usually was, well in advance of her family on a particularly important day like this, and dining alone to compose her thoughts in advance of the battle to come. It was still in the pre-dawn darkness, and the assault would take place in only a few hours. That she could win, she was certain of. The question was how to minimize casualties...
And the ruminations on that were what distracted her while she ate her meal until one of her aides arrived, and in fact walked right up to her, completely ignored, or unnoticed. He bowed deeply. “Your Grace, forgive me, but the commander of the Devenshirite light brigade is here and wishes to see you in person.”
“Ahh..!?” Frayuia glanced up, ears flexing. “Odd. He's already inside the command vehicle?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Then send him in. At once.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
Frayuia downed her dhpou in a solid slug of the drinking to get some warmth in her before facing this, and soon enough the man, in the uniform of a Devenshirite Colonel, now breveted to Brigadier, arrived and came to attention, offering a respectful salute.
“Brigadier Calhoun, I believe?”
“That's correct, Your Grace.”
“Please, have a seat...” She leaned over to grab the intercom handpiece off the wall to order up another breakfast, but he waved her off as he sat.
“Please, Your Grace, I want this to be made swift and succinct. I want you to arrest the commander of the armoured train force, the so-called 'General Arshon'. She's a wanted criminal on Devenshire.”
Frayuia started for a moment, her ears rigidly erect, and stared over at Calhoun. “Praytell, Brigadier, you realize that this, several hours before a major engagement, is an utterly inopportune time to make such a request?”
“Yes, but it is very urgency, Your Grace, lest it be found out by her and give her a chance to escape.”
“Well, she is in the service of a member of the Taloran nobility, and I will bluntly say that as a hired hand of my good friend's, I will not let you do a thing to her unless you provide a careful explanation justifying such measures. Immediately.”
The Brigadier took a breath and wiped some cold sweat from his brow. “Fair enough, Your Grace. I wouldn't expect anything less, I suppose...” And so he began. “General Arshon's real name, Your Grace, is Priscilla Laurentii—sometimes Priscilla Anderson, the name of the family that raised her. She is the illegitimate daughter of the Grand Duke of Pranton, the ethnic Arab Grand Duchy of the old Kingdom of Devenshire. Her father was His Grace the Grand Duke Johnathan Laurentii, the twelfth Grand Duke of Pranton, the Impaler of al-Cowhar.”
“The Impaler of al-Cowhar?”
“Eleven hundred revolting slaves impaled alive at his order,” the Brigadier answered. “Along with numerous other crimes, including gross sexual abuse of slaves and an extreme profilgancy which led to criminal skimming off the provincial budget which nearly got him charged under the old government. He was an exceptionally corrupt and evil man, the old Grand Duke.
“Priscilla was his daughter by one of his slaves, a girl who was only eleven at the time, twelve when she gave birth. Normally such a child would be raised as a slave, never knowing the exalted height of their blood. That was the typical and ruthless way of the Old Nobility in dealing with the results of their 'excesses'. But the old Grand Duke had a sympathetic streak toward her for some reason or another, and gave her as a foundling to the Anders family of steadholders, small-farming yeomanry who managed to ecke out an existence outside of the slave system.
“Now, you might at this point wonder what the fuss is. She should, be rights, be exactly the sort of person who was important in the post-collapse reconstruction, with ties on both sides of the fence,” Calhoun took another deep breath. “But during the uprisings as the Plymouthite forces advanced into Pranton province, she committed an act for which the locals call her, in the fashion of her father, the Butcher of umm-Karshash.”
“What did she do, Brigadier? You've provided the backstory. Just tell me.”
“The Ducal Palace was overwhelmed by the uprising, and the Grand Duke along with a few of his guards and hangers-on fled to the army barracks where he knew Priscilla was stationed. He'd helped her into the military as an officer, and she was a Captain at the time, serving as a Company commander and doubling as the executive officer of the local battalion. Being very popular with the troops in the area, she seized control of the battalion when the battalion Major vascillated on the idea of surrendering, and posted a strong guard.
“When her father came to see her, he came with the documents, and the DNA information, proving their relationship. She had at that point the chance to repudiate the evil of her family... Or join it. And she chose to join it. She embraced him, as the accounts of the slaves who cleaned the barracks go, and immediately organized a breakout attempt. In the breakout that happened, the liberated slaves tried to stop the battalion from reaching a light cruiser which had been down for repairs in the small shipyard in the city of umm-Karshash, which was going to try and take off and make a break for it.
“With such a force blocking her way, Priscilla, sheltering the Grand Duke in her command vehicle, led her APCs and tanks to massacre the escaped slaves. Nearly four thousand were killed and a square mile of the city's shanty-towns set on fire while Priscilla broke through in a hard fight to reach the light cruiser and get aboard with her forces, and her father. They blasted clear and shot their way through the Plymouthite blockade, the cruiser being nearly mortally damaged in the process.
“We never did track them down. Johnathan had enough resources, the old bastard, to always stay one step ahead of the law and every bounty hunter we could send after him. He finally died in the little two-planet Republic of Oranje you've probably never heard of before. Priscilla gave him a burial there and then disappeared. We found his grave, exhumed him, confirmed it was him, and reburied him—hoping she'd come back—but she never did. She took the money he still had stashed in hidden bank accounts and disappeared.
“But here she is, working as a merc commander whom the Princess Jhayka inadvertantly hired. And a General in the International Forces that you command. There's no doubt that it's her. I confirmed her appearence with visual recognition software. She's right in our hands, someone as vile as the Normans themselves. A wanted criminal, and you can deliver her to justice immediately..”
“But I won't.”
Brigadier Calhoun stared at Frayuia in shock. He stuttered for a moment, and cleared his throat. “Your Grace, you've heard all of this—why not?”
“Have you ever heard of the concept of filial piety?”
The brevet Brigadier stopped short, and took a moment to carefully think his way through the answer. “I.. I believe so. You're saying it's a noble act to protect one's father at any cost?”
“Not just that, but how much of this did she really know? Did she know her mother was an extreme minor by human standards? Did she know that her father was a brutal rapist who indulged in torture? Or was his only public crime the execution of those who had revolted against the lawful authority placed over them, as a natural part of his duties? And could an officer possibly be thought immoral for thinking such a thing acceptable, if perhaps distasteful?
“Tell me, Brigadier, how many offiers of the Army, who still serve now, thought that way?”
She was rewarded with silence, and it was telling that she was on the right track in this discussion. “She had just met her birth father for the first time. She was supposed to hand him into an outraged mob to be torn limb from limb, before she had even got his mettle? Brigadier, I won't have her arrested because I would have done the same thing myself. And, just perhaps, that is because I am an alien rather than a human. But I see here simply an impossible circumstance, in which she got her men clear at any price, and her father with them.
“What happened to her foster family?”
“They were killed at the hands of a mob,” Calhoun admitted quietly.
“And her mother?”
“I don't know. It isn't easily available in the fact records of the case that I researched when the sighting was first suspected in the media reports.”
Frayuia nodded. “Well, you have before you, at least, an example of the fact that she lost all she ever knew, due to her single effort to try and reach out to the parent she never knew that she'd had. I don't think that is immoral. Just pitiable. And she is under the Princess Jhayka's protection for the moment.
“What that means is that you may ask the Princess Jhayka. No-one else. I will retain her at her post, and you will speak nothing of this, until the Princess Jhayka has been informed... Preferably, personally by Her Majesty Queen Minerva or someone else of suitable rank to speak with a noblewoman on matters of honour. I will tell none of it to Arshon—to Priscilla Laurentii—so that you may have the chance to make what entreaties as you think are suitable.
“But insomuch as the writ of Taloran law runs here by force of my presence if nothing else, she will remain free, and in command. Is that understood, Brigadier?”
Calhoun nodded grimly. “Very well. But the nation has understandably wanted her for a long time. Pranton is rebellious...”
“And a woman of noble blood is to become a sacrifice to appease their rebelliousness?”
“I wouldn't put it that way, Your Grace. Her father's behaviour scarcely warrants the term nobility...”
“Blood is blood. And those same mobs who I presume clamour for her now, are the ones who killed her foster parents, who had done nothing at all, save the morally commendable act of the raising of a foundling. I will give her asylum in the Imperial Starfleet before I turn her over to such a fate, or even to a jury comprised of such a mob, if nominally lawful. Refer this to your Sovereign, or some other legally constituted authority, and do not trouble me with it again. You may trouble Her Highness the Princess Jhayka with it, when you see her in person in the city of Kalunda. Until then, bear your knowledge with silence. Is that understood?”
“I understand, Your Grace.”
“Then return to your unit at once, Brigadier, and prepare them for action! We have wasted enough time on this matter. You are dismissed.”
DAY 50,
Inside Kalunda.
In addition to the two great foot and vehicle bridges across the Kalunda River, there was the huge iron girder lift bridge of the interior rail line. All three of these bridges were to be assaulted generally by forces greatly in excess of the strength of their defenders. The pockets around each bridge had been reduced to about a regiment apiece over the night, except the one defended by Trajan's advanced battalion, where only that force proved more than sufficient to hold the bridge.
These bridges had connected the city, provided its prosperity. They had homes built onto them, long since evacuated, and they'd survived untouched, especially the old bridge, even the last siege. They were the lifeblood of the city, and now they were being rigged to blow. There was no question of launching a counterattack, and no question of holding out until relief with the remaining garrisons on the far side.
From the tunnels under the south bank of the river they were bringing everyone they could, all those who could still be moved. A few very sick were not evacuated in time, and they were given grenades. They could reach the towers of the bridges and make their way across under sporadic fire. A few of these civilians were killed. But by morning the last of them had been evacuated. Now there were scarcely six thousand Kalundan soldiers holding the perimeters around the bridges. It was time to evacuate them, too, but it would have to be done carefully, and only when the explosives had been properly placed. That would take several additional hours of work.
The exception was with the railroad bridge. It could easily be raised up to prevent the enemy from crossing. There was just the matter of getting all the soldiers across at once, and for that purpose a train consisting of elderly passenger cars was pushed by a switcher engine forward, with several of the cars, the last ones or more precisely those closest to the enemy, being armoured after an improvised fashion, mostly scrap iron wielded onto them. In the dawn's light the train was pushed all the way forward, and quickly attracted the attention of the Stirlin division in the circle around the regimental position.
As the regiment was shifted to board the train, and the men advanced along it from diaphram to diaphram, the cars forming a bridge across the rails to the other side, the opposite end of the train was soon brought under an intensive fire. Nothing more could be done, however, as the orders not to attack yet were strict, and the division commander was left in a desperate effort to get orders from Erqui to launch the attack early. In the meantime, an orderly fighting evacuation proceeded apace.
With the evacuation of the regiment finishing, the Stirlin division finally got permission to attack. It overran most of the area immediately, and the men made a dash for the train, which was already on fire from the sustained weaponry directed against it, the last of the defenders trying to get aboard and work themselves away from the burning cars. With an order, the train lurched into backwards motion, and the platoon or so worth of men who had not escaped, or at least got on board, had to run for it.
Close on their heels were the lead Stirlins. Ironically, the fact that the last cars were burning provided a deterrent for them to gain the cars as a means across the bridge, and the train was moving fairly slow, so that the platoon's worth of men could, by a dashing sprint, leap aboard just ahead of the flames. Yet in this process half of them were shot down, and a few more failed to make it aboard, and made for the bank that they might drift down with the current to one of the other pockets. As they started to roll across the bridge, the men in the last car realized that the best thing they could do now was to unhitch the burning coaches right where they were, and in doing so left a flaming mass of wrecked cars on the bridge, to burn through the ties and create a barrier quite impassable until the train had cleared the track.
On doing so, the drawbridge was brought up at once, and with its raising, one of the three pockets had been more or less successfully evacuated. Yet the city was scarcely out of danger, and more than thirty-five hundred soldiers were still in a situation of severe risk. For the support of the remaining regiment, the last armoured vehicles of Kalunda, five assault guns and two armoured personnel carriers, were sent forward to provide an armoured cover for their retreat. Trajan's power armour battalion would have to arrange their own retreat, and rely on their armour to remain safe in closing the low and old stone bridge. There were no more resources to send.
“Il... Ilavna..?” The voice was trembling and weak. The eyes did not open. But that Jhayka had spoken was very clear. She was awakening.
The girl 'heard' her from several rooms away, attuned to the sense of her Liege's mind, and came dashing. The first thing she did, though, was to check all the readouts, and confirm that it was quite safe and normal for Jhayka to be waking up. “I had expected you'd be unconscious longer,” Ilavna offered with a smile. “But you're very strong.”
“Did you... Take care of.... The Stirlin Brigadier?”
“She's under house arrest in your private apartment, Your Highness. Untouched and never interrogated.”
“Good. She was kind to me when I needed it most. I will make her life a comfortable one... If we live.”
“We will live,” Ilavna answered sharply, and then, stepped closer and smiled down to Jhayka. “Your Highness, a friend of your's is very close by.”
“Who?” Jhayka finally opened her eyes, but they were glazed over and unfocused without the real will to make herself see.
“The Duchess of Medina commands the relief expedition. It has arrived and landed, they took East Port yesterday, I understand. They must have started driving inland to relieve us this very morning.”
“Mmmf. Frayuia Risim. Something ironic in that old puritan coming to my rescue, though I love her dearly...” She couldn't even muster the strength to laugh.
But suddenly her eyes focused with some intensity. “What's the situation of the city?”
“A battalion is holding the Sackon Warehouse, that we rescued you from. Across the barge canal, the big Quay is held by a single corps. The rest of the forces are on the north bank.. There the allies have made no progress. But they've overrun the south bank, Your Highness. The railroad bridge has been lifted and the forces there evacuated.. All the civilians were taken out, the very last, over last night. But Trajan's battalion holds one, and a regiment with some armour the other, of the two road bridges.”
“When are they to be blown?”
“I don't think until a careful retreat has been planned, or perhaps if the enemy presses hard...”
“..Blow them...” Jhayka ordered. “As soon as can be done. The rear-guard can be evacuated by Danielle's ships....” A moment of terror clenched the Taloran through and through. “Danielle is alright, yes?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Thank the Lord, who is Just. She does not deserve to fall here.”
“He is all justice, Your Highness,” Ilavna agreed readily. “And I am sure the two of you will reconcile your places in all due time, when the siege is over. Do you want me to bring Danielle to you? I am sure it would make feel much better...”
But Jhayka cut her off: “No. Danielle is needed. Blow the bridges. This is the last use of the fleet.... Evacuate the rearguards by boat, after the bridges are gone. Dani must see to that...”
Jhayka lapsed back into unconsciousness, and the worried Ilavna Lashila spent several minutes checking to make sure all the readings were correct and in the normal levels. They were: She had simply exhausted herself already.
Heeding Jhayka's last instructions before unconsciousness, Ilavna dashed off to find the Admiral of the much reduced river flotilla of the nation of Kalunda. Her advice would matter more in the councils of War in the city, now, than her's could hope to. And that would, hopefully, be enough to avert whatever fear gripped Jhayka at the information she'd been told.
Last edited by Steve on 2007-04-16 03:29am, edited 5 times in total.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
DAY 50,
East Port Heights.
All along the lines of the international forces, the orders were quietly given. Soldiers slipped into their power armour. Soldiers without it finished strapping on their general body protection armour and pulled on the rest of their NBC gear. Gas masks were set and seals were checked for integrity. The forward scouting lines were already prepared for this eventuality. Railroad cars fitted with heavy missiles from the ships in orbit had been arrayed to serve as their launching platforms in a ground-to-ground role.
The Duchess of Medina's command vehicle was fully staffed now, and the tense Talorans around her were waiting for the orders. There was every reason to be tense: Thanks to the stand of the Cartagenean Corps up there, the battle would certainly involve as many nuclear weapons as a full scale engagement between two modern powers. The question, however, was if the electronics and defences of the Gileans were up to it, especially spread out defensively over so broad an area.
“Don't target their reinforcements, dear,” the Duchess of Medina said offhandedly, addressing her husband. He turned quizzically...
“I believe we can compel the old Cartagenean Armoured Division to surrrender, you see,” she explained at last. “General Rosario was their patron and old commander, and her disappearance has left their morale at rock bottom. They hate Covington. So don't touch them with the nuclear missiles, in none of the targeting plans. That will let us focus more effectively on the enemy's main lines and crack them.”
“Understood, General.”
Her Chief of Staff nodded sharply, and that left the matter of targeting clear, though a moment later, he—Brigadier General Iralan—spoke up again to clarify: “Which one of the advance patterns are we using?”
“The general advance by armour with close nuclear support. We'll reverse the usual order, hold the infantry and their support vehicles back. They can sweep the rabble off the field once we've cracked their cohesion. I want this nuclear assault to look like it was one from the Arlos War...”
A brief moment of silence. The reintegration of the Arlos system with its double-planet had proved a particularly brutal conflict.
“We have copious supply in orbit, my officers. We will face no organized foe at all. Use all our nuclear devices. Overwhelm them. Our defences will prove better than their's, and what follows will be a slaughter.
“We will coordinate the main paths of advance for the northern and southern forces to pass on both sides of the central position held by the Cartagenean Armoured Division. I want to put our very strongest nuclear barrage on the left-centre and right-centre of the enemy...” She brought up the areas of the tactical plot she had been considering. “So that the tanks can move through unimpeded by any sort of resistance. They can surround the Cartagenean Armoured and after we've forced it to surrender turn out and annihilate the flanks of the enemy which will shall be separated from each other and unable to support each other... As for the great bulk of the local levies, our non-nuclear artillery can be well serviced by keeping them under a continuous cloud of nerve gas. They don't have nearly enough chemical warfare equipment, or experience, to handle such an environment.”
It was another thirty minutes while the final preparations for the designated operations were begun. Finally, at 0930 hours that morning, the last of the units reported their readiness to the Duchess of Medina. The tanks rumbled with their fans whirring and shields up, waiting hull-down for the order to go. The infantry tensed in their vehicles, as protected as they could be, and wondered if they would be unlucky... The artillerists dialed in their first targets for their lethal cargoes, and adjusted the yields of the nuclear warheads where applicable. The scouts prepared their positions to withstand the nuclear firestorm that would be rising ahead of them.
The Duchess smiled vaguely, bowed her head, closed her eyes, crossed her arms at the wrists across her chest, and prayed. She was still in the position of obesience to the Lord of Justice when she gave the order, scarcely more than a murmur. “Commence the operation.”
Three hundred tactical nuclear missiles leapt from their launching rails within four seconds of each other and accelerated at an average of around one hundred gravities, covering the distance to the enemy formations some thirty klicks off from the launchers at an average speed over the whole distance of 4,700 meters per second. The missiles took seven seconds on average to traverse the entire distance.
Automatic defensive cannon and anti-missile launchers on the lines of the defending Gileans picked up on them and immediately responded. The incredible power of the defensive arrangements of even a third-rate corps in prepared positions was demonstrated in the fact that 289 of the missiles were shot down before their nuclear warheads could be initiated. The other eleven successfully initiated.
For a moment the whole ridge was obscured in massive balls of fire far greater than the intensity of suns. Thousands of unprepared local levies simply ceased to exist. Tanks were shattered and tumbled around the field of battle with melted gun barrels at the immediate point-blank range as eleven devices with yields ranging from 500kT to 700kT spread incredible heat in the areas defined by their hypocentres. Countless men were given lethal doses of radiation by the minimum fallout, maximum output fusion weapons which hundreds of years of nuclear research had gifted the international forces.
The formation of mushroom clouds was impossible because of the theatre shields over the position, and the hot gasses of the detonations crackled against them and weakened them, revealing the shields in the air as they were contorted into strange shapes by the energetic interactions and pushed back down to obscure vast areas of the Gilean lines in a radioactive fogbank. The result of that was thousands of more unprotected individuals quickly being given lethal doses of radiation. Some twelve thousand were killed or mortally wounded outright in the first salvo, and ninety-two MBTs destroyed along with three hundred lesser armoured vehicles.
The response of the Cartagenean Corps was immediate, however. The full corps artillery sent a salvo of 400 nuclear-tipped missiles flung right back at the international forces. These weapons were weaker, though, their dial-a-yield settings reduced because they were firing toward their own city of East Port and worried about fallout. They were also much older designs, with much older electronics on the missiles, and the defences of the international forces were considerably better. As a result, though a third-again as many missiles were fired, even fewer of them got through: Eight in all. The settings also meant they were only delivering yields of 150kT each.. And the international MBTs had their own integrated shielding, along with most of the heaviest IFVs and all the command vehicles and shield and gunnery platforms.
As a result only seventeen MBTs and thirty-eight other IFVs were lost outright with some 500 in vehicles killed, though casualties in the rear areas were also heavy as the less-protected there were more heavily exposed; 920 international forces soldiers died immediately, in levels shocking for those who hadn't seen extremely heavy nuclear ground combat before, but very typical for this sort of fighting in a general sense, light, even, considering the obsolete nature of the opposition. It was actually a very poor showing for the Gileans, with many of their missiles going wide from ideal targets, and virtually all the international forces' troops in vehicles which could survive anything and still fight, save being directly engulfed in the fireball.
The next salvo from the international batteries was re-calibrated immediately and sent after the Cartagenean Corps' nuclear batteries. Their response to the enemy's defences was improving as they learned methods of getting around the anemic Gilean technology. Nineteen missiles got through this time, and they wiped out half of the Gilean nuclear batteries, though killing rather fewer since they weren't targeted at the infantry, only nine thousand killed or given fatal radiation doses instantaneously. The Gileans bravely responded with their remaining 207 missiles, all other nuclear missile reserves having been expended firing at the landing forces or defensively at aerospace fighters beforehand.
These missiles were targeted at the enemy's nuclear batteries, more daringly toward the rear and East Port—though they were dialed down again to 120kT to compensate with a better safety margin--and several fell around the General Faeria in the same position, which survived unscathed but with her energy shielding collapsed, General Arshon's—Priscilla Laurentii's—command viciously rocked on the steel rails as the competing nuclear blasts buffeted it with near misses. Even the Duchess of Medina's command hover-vehicle was rocked. Six of the enemy's nukes got through and these better-aimed weapons than the first salvo knocked out 60 of the International forces' improvised nuclear launchers and inflicted another 970 outright fatalities.
The last salvo of 240 missiles was readied from the international forces' launchers. These were targeted directly at the anti-missile systems to open up a path for the remaining sixty-three missiles which some of the other races' launchers, with more copious reserves, had. These systems were well-dispersed and collateral casualties were light. Six thousand of the Gilean defenders—as with the other times, predominantly the locals and the militia—were killed or mortally wounded by radiation outright as seven missiles got through. The Gilean anti-missile defences proved much more resilient than was expected, however, and when the final salvo was thrown against them a minute later, they succeeded in downing all but four. This last salvo had been concentrated at the lines, however, and was more than violent enough for only four warheads initiating, killing eight thousand of the defenders or mortally wounding them outright.
All of the heavy nuclear weapons had now been expended on both sides. Only .4 – 6.5kT nuclear recoiless rifle or anti-tank missiles were now available to both sides, and artillery shells of essentially identical yields. Around eight hundred of these had already been fired by each side, and 91% of these much slower and easier to disable or destroy weapons had been shot down by the Gileans and 96% by the international forces. The rest had served to inflict 460 fatalities on the international forces and 4,900 on the much more weakly protected Gileans. Huge gaps had been torn in the Gilean lines, and out of nearly 400,000 defenders, 32,000 of them had been killed in the first five minutes of the engagement and twice that number had been wounded. In comparison 2,350 international forces soldiers had been killed, and a roughly equal number wounded (the shielding of the international vehicles meant that unless utterly destroyed the crews suffered little) and the Gileans had essentially already entirely exhausted their weapons capable of inflicting further casualties on the international forces.
The graphic nature of those technological force disparities was now made brutally clear. Though 24% of the Gilean force had been killed or wounded in the first five minutes of the fighting, at least nominally they had the strength to continue to contest the heights: Only 11,000 of those 96,000 casualties had been from the men of the 145,000-strong Cartagenean Corps. The other 85,000, including by far almost all the fatalities, were among the militia of East Port which had chosen to support Covington, and the primitive zone forces, which were totally unprepared for this form of warfare. Considerably less than 300 of the 1,250 MBTs dug in to fight hull-down along the ridges had been destroyed or disabled. It seemed like they might still fight well and hold the ridge...
But now the batteries of the international forces' artillery were, having gained the advantage through the nuclear missile strikes, reducing the Gilean artillery with N-squared efficiency, annihilating even the highly dispersed and mobile self-propelled launchers with coordinated attacks using 5 - 6.5kT yield shells in sufficient quantities to overwhelm the anti-shell lasers, while the numbers of the rapidly dwindling Gilean artillery were insufficient to punch any of their own shells through the international defences for the rest of the battle, save around a half-dozen flukes of luck and fate. These shells furthermore inflicted considerable additional casualties among the unprotected local defenders.
In the meanwhile, the hovertanks and their scout-fighting vehicle escorts were closing at speeds of up to 200km/h against the Gilean lines from starting points roughly 25km away. The massive Taloran RGH-167 MBHTs, 250 metric tonne monsters capable of 200km/h and equipped with their own energy shields and 240mm powerguns, raced their slightly smaller but equally fast Slavian counterparts into the first contact with the enemy tanks preparing to fight their desperate struggle hull-down.
During those four additional minutes between the end of the nuclear missile exchanges and the arrival of the armoured fist of the international forces, the nuclear artillery support they were being provided had casually caused another 8,000 fatalities—all but a thousand among the poorly protected primitives and local militia—and nearly 20,000 wounded, while essentially suppressing the Gilean artillery. Another 5,000 fatalities, none of those in the Cartagenean corps, had been caused by the massive clouds of highly potent advanced nerve gasses being used by the conventional artillery of the international forces firing with maximum rapidity. More than 47,000 sentients died in the first 10 minutes of the fighting, at a ratio of twenty-three Gileans to one international soldier. The death toll would have been much higher if the Gilean regulars hadn't at least insured every single one of the defenders had a gas mask and was in highly prepared and reinforced entrenchments which were widely dispersed over a very large area of the plateau, instead of the tight defensive lines with which they were familiar.
As the international MBTs approached the enemy positions, the scouting and support IFVs abruptly launched mass salvoes of light nuclear-tipped anti-tank missiles on fire-and-forget mode and equally large numbers of recoiless rifle rounds, before turning and hastily retiring from the field. The defensive lasers on the dug-in Gilean tanks shot almost all of these down, and only another fourty-two Gilean MBTs were lost and about another 1,000 defenders killed instantly, but in doing so they unmasked their positions to the international MBTs...
The experience of Sergeant Trilisia Raujhm's five-soldier crew on the RGH-167:60789 was typical. The whole crew was in full NBC gear ontop of being in a fully sealed and radiation-shielded heavy MBHT with full energy shielding around the hull in turn. Through their suits they were wired into neural interfaces with the hovertank's computer system that allowed them to control all aspects of its operation instantaneously. As the energy of dozens of small nuclear events faded from the immediate vicinity, their visual sensors resolved the scene...
And suddenly a vast array of targets were overlaid as inter-vehicle datalinks conveyed all the information about the detected laser-firing positions, a grid interlinked with the visual scene perfectly, providing all the real-time target data they needed. The commander of their armoured brigade observed it, and immediately coordinated two salvoes of nuclear anti-tank missiles from the rack launchers fitted to the MBHTs themselves, expending their small supply of the weapons, but to good effect as they undercut the preparations of the Gileans to respond to another larger salvo.
Bodies were burning alive as the nukes detonated, flash-fried skeletons visible vaguely through the sensor feeds as the intense light faded and cracked entrenchments were revealed through the murky dust using low-visibility sensors, while craters from these small ground-bursts were navigated around and Gilean tanks were visible, having been ripped out of their positions half-underground and flung like toys by virtually point-blank hits. The tank shuddered with the shockwaves and then shuddered again...
The enemy was scarcely out of the fight. To avoid being destroyed in place they'd revved up and burst out of position and were going in close, firing shield-penetrators from their conventional guns, where the shells released a burst of energy to temporarily short out shields and then send a supra-dense sabot flinging from inside the shield barrier up against the side of the enemy tank, a clever adaptation of a technologically inferior foe.
But it wasn't an adaptation that could penetrate the side-armour of an RGH-167, even at close range. “Ghisimi! Main gun target fifty-nine degrees! Full power!” Trilisia snapped out in short succession. The turret rapidly traversed to fifty-nine degrees relative and the gunner, Corporal Ghisimi Savan, dialed in on the tank that had fired at them while the engineer on the tank, Iluvan Erash, dumped all available energy into the powergun's capacitors. The whole process took just three seconds under neural interface control and then the gun fired. No Gilean tank in existence had even frontal armour capable of repelling a 240mm powergun bolt. The tank exploded into a fireball instantaneously, its turret flung up into the air and a flaming body being violently ejected from it.
“Forward! Fifty kmh!” The forward-motion turbojets on the tank whined as the massive ground-effect fans rotated under the armoured skirt at full power, driving past the smashed out hulk as part of an armoured company movement which had already casually destroyed eighty-one Gilean tanks without a single loss, the driver Arisia guiding the massive vehicle forward through an eerie nuclear wasteland as immensely bright flashes from the action still very distant activated automatic darkening components in the sensors repeatedly.
“APC seventeen degrees!”
The turret swung around..
“MBT three fourty degrees..”
“Take the APC first!” Trilisia snapped, and the powergun immediately fired. The APC simply crumpled, ripped apart without even the sequence of events needed for an impressive secondary. “Second target, engage! Speed 100kmh!” A shot imbedded itself into the right flank armour of the tank's skirt, denting it, but not enough to threaten the operation of the blades. The turret swung and the powergun fired again. Another tank exploded.
“Watch out, 60789! There's an enemy tank platoon at six hundred meters, three hundred degrees relative and still hull down!”
“Full stop! Vilasia, get those bunkers! Reverse 50kmh—action right!”
“Prepared for rapid fire!”
A series of shells struck close around the tank as she swayed and backpedaled, the turret desperately manoeuvring to swing in and suddenly lay down a series of three rapid-fire shots into the position of the hull-down platoon. They missed. In the meantime the 2cm powergun calliope had been counter-mobile, swinging back in the opposite direction to rake a bunker which might not still have life in with enough power to definitely riddle it and open it to the radioactive atmosphere just outside.
Then two shots rocked the tank, and Ghisimi cried in rage even as she fired again with another miss: “They've jammed the turret!”
“Pull us back, Arisi, and see if you can shake it loose..” As the 60789 fell back, however, it attracted the attention of the platoon long enough for the other three tanks in its section to come up, and with viciously accurate shooting, prepared for the encounter unlike the 60789 had been, they rapidly destroyed three of the enemy MBTs with their first three shots and very quickly began to pick apart the rest of the platoon before it could manoeuvre out of its hull-down positions and retire.
The 60789, useless with its turret jammed, retired safely from the field, where NBC-recovery equipment was waiting to blast down the hull in powerful cleansing solvents and radiation dampers, before a special outer ablative microfilm on the whole of the tank's outer surface which served to absorb radiation was treated with a chemical spray which made it turn to a viscuous liquid in moments, a liquid which was easily sprayed off the tank by compressed nitrogen blowers, the ground under the tank then being sealed by a plastic spray to prevent radioactive dust from rising, or ground-water contamination, and a new ablative layer was applied to the whole tank. With the aide of several remote-controlled robots, the NBC clearing vehicle was able to clean, slough off the ablative, and re-apply another coating, in a total of three minutes—and do it to six MBHTs simultaneously They were now again safe enough that their crews could eat off their outer hulls, and the 60789 could immediately report to have its turret safely repaired.
On the heights the battle had of course continued, and it had continued like nothing else imaginable. The primitives had ended up committing the worst and last error of their lives. They had started to flee in mass. In doing so they opened themselves up to sustained attack by conventional weapons in areas that the defensive weaponry of the Cartagenean Corps was unprepared to support them in. Tens of thousands of cluster munition-packed shells were scattered over them and explosive flechette packs tore through the fleeing men, while a few 5kT-range nuke shells and plenty of nerve gas shells added to the utterly lethal mix. This phase of the battle, more really a sort of massacre, was rapidly becoming the most deadly.
Fighting had been ongoing for about 90 minutes, now, and during the last 80 minutes of the engagement another 20,000 primitives had been killed as the battle became largely conventional, but the armour was now doing it's work, and the material question was rapidly becoming the more crucial. All along the heights of the plateau the evidence of the massive superiourity of the international armour was shown in the endless visages of burned out, blasted, and shattered Gilean armoured vehicles. They had tried to stand, and their fire had more or less bounced harmlessly off the massive international MBHTs. Since the fighting had begun, the international forces had lost 31 of the 500 such massive tanks destroyed outright or disabled from all sources. The Gileans had lost 663--more than half. 94 out of 1,000 medium tanks and APCs in the international forces had been destroyed or disabled; the Gileans had lost 51% of their strength in those vehicle types.
Hundreds of nuclear devices of all sizes had initiated over the massive battlefield which was strung, end to end, over perhaps a hundred kilometers in length and fourty-five in depth between the two sides engaged with each other in the sprawling and deadly contest. Clouds of nerve gas and radioactive materials mingled insensibility in a mad chaos. And now the fleeing primitive troops, though they had managed to at least get well to the rear before it happened, were subjected to a bombardment which as noted had killed 30,000 more of them in the course of another 20 minutes.
In the meanwhile, the two prongs of the international armoured advance were swinging to engulf the heretofore unengaged and largely untouched Cartagenean Armoured Division. This mainstay, the reserve of the defences, was under General Rulos' direct command to hold in place even as the other two divisions—which were very much pro-Covington forces, unlike General Rosario's old command—had their armour torn apart in the effort to stop the enemy advance and suffered 20,000 casualties of their own, nearly half those suffered by the Cartagenean Corps so far, and were flung back out of the battlefield, retreating with more than 85% of each division's tanks annihilated in less than two hours of sustained combat, leaving the burning debris of thousands of vehicles, as well as the fried, shot, irradiated, run-over, and ground-up bodies of more than 100,000 dead and dying strewn across the plateau.
General Rulos, realizing that the flanks of the Cartagenean Armoured Division were becoming a vicious trap for the strangely untouched reserves, ordered them forward. Until, that is, intelligence was steadily gathered that showed the main bulk of the APC-bourne and heavy power-armoured infantry of the enemy, along with their MBHT reserves, pushing up directly toward the centre, the Duchess of Medina having seemingly inexplicably ordered a vicious head-to-head confrontation rather than going after the 'easy meat' of the fleeing primitives, or finishing off the East Port militia formations which had stood their ground just to get massacred by the APCs and the troops they'd disgorged, the remnants of those units still fighting despite having taking 10,000 casualties of their own. To go forward now was to tempt Cannae, and even though he might destroy the equivalent of an enemy division in going down...
I'd just condemn another thirty thousand of my boys to death, the General concluded with a heavy, heavy heart. Very unwilling ones, who preferred, as he, to serve a far better leader than Covington ever could have.
“Contact the enemy commander,” he ordered quietly. “Now. While there's still time.”
Soon, the familiar and strange accent of the Taloran General could be heard filling Rulos' mobile command post. “General Rulos, you would not contact me now without good reason, and I assume we both know this reason...”
“Yes,” Rulos rasped in response. “I want a cease-fire to negotiate the surrender of my men.” He was not certain if the Talorans were accept such a request or not...
“Granted.” Frayuia didn't even have to think about it. “We are halting fire immediately and pulling back for safety. Signal all of your units to do the same, General Rulos. At once. I have had enough of this wanton butchery. The honour of your army is upheld; now, you must be a moral man. Secure your units, and then we will arrange a meeting to discuss the terms of surrender.”
Two hours and four minutes after the battle had begun, the guns fell silent all along the ridgelines and the plateau. The theatre shields were deactivated, and the radioactive clouds allowed to escape and be dispersed into the atmosphere where their continued saturation would not utterly devastate the ground. Sunlight began to filter in through the eerie cloud formations and illuminate the field; it seemed like the battle might really be over.
Good desires far apart from grim reality, the fact was that the tough old Caliphal mercenary, General Neguib, had sworn an oath to a fellow Muslim in the al-Farani Emirate to fight to his last strength. And the political cronies commanding the 46th armoured and 37th mechanized divisions were still alive. The remnants of these severely battered divisions and whatever forces that Neguib could muster began to slip away to the rear in a disorderly fashion, with Neguib essentially in overall command.
It didn't take long for satellite intelligence to inform the Duchess of Medina, even as General Rulos' staff were desperately trying to contact the units to compel them to surrender, and being grimly ignored. A few of the theatre-shield units went with them, and could provide a modicum of defence from above...
“General Rulos, are the retreating units under your command?”
“No,” the Hispanic affirmed harshly. “They have disobeyed my orders. I think one of the mercenaries working for the primitives, a fellow by the name of Neguib, is behind this—though Covington had political cronies in command of the other divisions. If you must resume hostilities against them, I will provide all the information I can to distinguish those units from the legitimately surrendered, to avoid repercussions...”
“Do so, General. But I want you at the same time to personally come down here yourself.”
“I understand, Your Grace.”
I should have known better than to trust a force with a Moor as a high commander, Frayuia thought disgustedly. At least 43,000 troops of the Cartagenean corps were getting clean away, along with however many of the primitives could possibly contemplate fighting again after that conflagration from Hell. With the need to secure the surrendered units between her and the retiring forces, they could not immediately pursue. Most of the vehicles needed to be cleaned off from severe radiation exposure, anyway...
Well, they shall, at least, not pose any serious threat to us again. Their nukes are essentially expended—I would not be surprised if the retreating forces only have two or three dozen of the lightest type left—and their numbers are less than a third of those in modern troops they once enjoyed. She concentrated after that on the reports of the final casualty lists from the battle for the international forces, and it was this list that she was reviewing when, an hour and twenty minutes later, General Rulos arrived and his command vehicle was decontaminated to allow him to exit and approach Frayuia's.
As he entered the command centre from which Frayuia had directed the course of the battle—his NBC gear removed in the airlock--she tapped in a command, and the holo-tank shifted to show a view of the casualty lists for her own forces, and the estimates for the enemy:
International:
3,219 KIA confirmed.
488 MIA estimate.
7,070 WIA estimate.
38 MBTs destroyed or disabled, confirmed.
92 IFVs and medium tanks destroyed or disabled, confirmed.
6 IFVs unaccounted for.
102 artillery pieces and missile launchers destroyed.
Cartagenean Corps and Militia:
Corps:
approx. 45,000 casualties.
approx. 60,000 surrendered.
approx 40,000 escaped.
Militia:
20,000 casualties.
20,000 surrendered.
Primitives:
approx. 90,000 killed out of 210,000, and at least 80,000 wounded.
“General Rulos, was it worth it?”
The man stared up at the blaring, bright green figures and hovered, mouth open, in quiet shock. It was only now that the magnitude of the slaughter reached him, of the men who had insisted to stay.. And nearly half of them had paid the ultimate price for it because they had no conception of what the fight would be like.
He drew his sword.. And threw it to the floor of the command centre. “I have no honour left, General, for me to offer you. I should not have let this battle reach such a mad point.”
Frayuia smiled gently and stood up, walking slowly around the holoprojector as her daughters watched and wondered about what would happen. She bent down, herself, and picked up the sword, looking it over, and then, with a bow and a flourish, offered it to the utterly broken General who seemed now on the verge of utter emotional and mental collapse.
“General Rulos, keep your sword. And keep in mind, also, that the Lord of Justice has mercy in His infinite heart. You did your duty to the country you had sworn a sacred oath to defend. Now it is your's, also to seek forgiveness for what that required, for what that became. What was done out of noble and honourable intentions can certainly be forgiven in time.
“Now, as for the matter of the surrender.”
“I will accept whatever your terms are, Your Grace,” he half-mumbled.
“Then I will moderate them as though we had actually negotiated,” she answered. “I'll grant all your officers, militia and regulars, parole, with swords and sidearms for defence. The regular soldiers will be disarmed and, if belonging to a community which has sided with the international forces, will be released. Otherwise they will be quartered in the houses of the citizens of East Port and not allowed to leave that city until the cessation of hostilities, on penalty of field execution for violating the terms of their surrender. Your officers on parole, yourself included, may go wherever you please as long as you do not take up arms against the international forces. Any officers who refuse parole will be imprisoned in the fleet above until a final determination of their status can be made.”
“You.. You are very merciful, Your Grace..”
“No! Not mercy..” Frayuia sighed. “I have just killed to many people in my life to suffer from the malady of vengeance ever again. Now go, General, and see to the parole of your men.”
Genera Rulos saluted stiffly and turned, leaving with a single security guard as an escort.
Frayuia looked around for a long moment. Her eyes fell on her chief of staff, and avoided her family. “Inform General Lazarevic of the terms of surrender and that he should begin processing the prisoners. He is in temporary charge until tomorrow, when the situation should be ordered enough for us to begin the dash to Kalunda.”
“Of course, General.”
Frayuia nodded at the acknowledgement, and turned away from all, her ears down. She went straight back to the little room reserved for her personal confessor. Nothing else could possibly be suitable at the moment, or possible to think about, than to acknowledge to God that as the collateral damage for cracking the defensive position of the Cartagenean Corps, she had slaughtered perhaps ninety thousand primitives incapable of genuine resistance, who, whatever their crimes, her noble heart could not permit her to think deserving of being subjected to such a one-sided butchery.
But if they are desperate, or hopeless enough, I will have to execute several more before this is done. And for the reason to that, also, I must trust Farzbardor and Him only.
DAY 50
Kalunda Riverfront.
The old stone bridge was near the edge of the equally old city walls. It had been built upstream of all the piers and quays of the old city so that sailing ships could dock downstream of it. Upstream of the bridge the water levels of the river gradually declined to the point that only barge traffic was possible, and Kalunda had never had any desire of allowing sailing ships and other large vessels to go past it, even including, and perhaps especially, the big steel barges which brought goods from the outside world. It made the city profitable, a wall across the river as much as a bridge.
Fourty stone arches carried the bridge across the river, with approaches built on fill on either side. The modern vehicle/pedestrian cantilever bridge had been blasted down fairly easily enough when Jhayka's orders reached King Julio, and he decided to act upon them, trusting the words of his Marshal even when she was just recovered from injuries which had come within the barest thread of taking her life.
By this point, Trajan had got most of his battalion back across the old bridge. Leading a single company he remained behind, refusing the entreaties of the Taloran corporal, Rishiva, who had ended up one of the company commanders in the force, to keep a stronger guard until the bridge had been blown. He had sent her away and resolved to stand with a single company.
The enemy's attacks were falling fast and hard upon their position. The artillery, though, was only firing shrapnel to avoid damaging the bridge, and this made it easy to withstand in their power armour. Elements of a full Stirlin infantry division were involved against them, but fighting out on the highly built-up bridge approaches, there was scarcely any room for a mass of men to approach them.
All around the crossfire was murderous, but as long as limited numbers of men were forced to push down the causeways on the bridge approaches proper, to actually get at his positions, they couldn't overwhelm the defending company. Perhaps even after they'd expended their ammunition they could hold... But they shouldn't be placed in such a position where that was necessary.
Then the explosives on part of the spans of the bridge failed. There were a total of thirty-four arched spans across the bridge, some of varying size, and a simple mistake had placed a charge for one of the main spans on one of the narrower spans. This might seem like overkill, but actually it was the reverse. The main spans, longer, had more structural stresses and weight, and were easier to collapse. The massive medieval construction of the shorter arched spans made them much more resistance, and in the middle of the blown-down sections, a lonely arched section of the bridge was left.
As the dust cleared, the magnitude of the issue was obvious to all of them, including Trajan himself. "They can bridge it now!" He growled outloud, and cursed to himself, having learned enough about this sort of combat to know full-well that the Stirlins could bring up bridging equipment across the gaps.
Admiral Danielle Verdes had a problem of her own with the attrited remnants of her river flotilla. She could try to evacuate both remaining garrisons on the south bank at once, or take one, and then the other. Her fleet was facing murderous fire, and was already very weak, even with all the last civilian craft conscripted-and they could not last long. The orders to evacuate the remnant garrisons had been unwanted at best, and a short battalion remained for her to get off around the remnants of the New Bridge.
To keep her force together for the best protection against the enemy, she had elected to evacuate it first, simultaneously, with every resource available. It seemed obvious that Trajan's men could wait longer in their power armour. Then the failure of the centre span to be destroyed added a major kink in those plans. It would have to be taken out. The city now lacked the heavy artillery to do; men would have to be landed on the section and new charges set.
That would require vessels from her force, vessels would be lethally exposed if sent alone, while slowing the evacuation operation. A grim decision would have to be made; Trajan would have to hold with his company until the first evacuation had finished, and then serve as a distraction while new charges were set by the whole of the massed flotilla, which could then only take them off in the usual stages, one platoon covering the others in the company, and then a few men covering the rest before swimming for it.
Danielle was brutally aware, too, that the river was untenable for her once-proud flotilla now. This would be their last mission; they would take losses on it; and the surviving boats would then be grounded in the well-protected canals, stripped of arms, and their crews sent to the lines. It was a last hurrah, and one that might also kill every single one of them left...
But I know that Jhayka is awake again, and sent these orders. Julio said as much. The relieve force is coming and cannot be long in arriving. We can hope again! We can live again! Hang on, Trajan, we're coming for you. The enemy's artillery got lucky, and one of her last gunboats shuddered bodily and began to list, though it still doggedly plowed forward in the muddy and waste-strewn waters of the Kalundas to cover the civilian craft taking off the battalion. It was a reminder, but also damage that would make their continued operations that much more dangerous, and take that much longer to execute.
Trajan would have a while to wait with his men. And somehow Danielle knew that even when they had been rescued, the brave and powerful Clansman would be the last to leave the position, fighting for the honour of a liege-lady of a foreign species, who three months before he had not even known to exist, and to protect the men over whom she had given him responsibility. But that was his way, and saving him-that would be her's.
DAY 47
Soon combat would begin again, and Trajan relished the opportunity to rest and prepare himself for it. His unit had been in action for very long, much longer than Clan warriors were typically accustomed to.
Perhaps that was why the Clans were destroyed, he thought to himself. Our ways acted to minimize violence with ritual and tradition. To these people it is neither, but total and unyielding. Fighting until one side has been crushed. Maybe that is why....
"Ah, my friend, I thought I would find you here!"
Trajan looked up from the ration he was eating at the sound of the crackly, hoarse voice of Ro'takh. The elder Klingon was in a tattered uniform. "Ro'takh, you are doing well?"
"Yes. I have cheated Death much in these past few days," the old scholar-monk boasted. "It has been glorious."
"It has," Trajan agreed. He placed his ration down.
"They say that the river fleet extracted your liege out from under the enemy," Ro'takh said. "It has been a good day."
"Certainly, but I have heard her survival is still uncertain," Trajan replied sullenly.
"I see. But no fear, for she has a warrior's spirit as well, and I have no doubts that she will survive." Ro'takh looked up. "It was good to see you again, Trajan. I hope to share bloodwine with you after the city is relieved and our victory is secured."
"Before you go, Ro'takh, I would ask a favor of you."
"What is it, Trajan?"
"Juliana." Trajan looked up to him. "Should the Princess and I both fall, should none be left to watch over her.... I ask that you find her a place where she will be happy."
"I swear on my honor that it will be so," Ro'takh promised him. Taking out a blade, he cut his palm and let his blood drip to the soil. "On my blood, your charge will have the life you desire for her."
"Thank you, my friend."
DAY 50
The roar of weapons echoed continuously through the air as Trajan's company held fast. The weapon in his arms roared continuously as he and his soldiers held out for evacuation.
The fate of the city was in his hands. The fate of the Princess Jhayka, of her lover Danielle, of the priestess Illavna, of his friend Ro'takh, all came down to Trajan holding out long enough for Danielle's ships to finish the evacuation and bring the bridge down.
The enemy shrapnel fire was harmless, and the Stirlins came across his position with increasing ferocity, leaving piles of their dead on the approaches to the bridge while his company poured fire into them.
But ammunition was starting to run low. It had, in fact, been running long for a long while, but there had been the promise of resupply from meager reserves until the bridge had been blown. Now they only had what they had. Trajan ordered his troops to conserve fire as much as possible, even if they let the Stirlins get closer, as the purpose here was to stall them until the bridge's central span could be eliminiated.
The thunderous roar of their guns lessened, but did not fully end, bullets cutting down Stirlin soldiers like so much wheat before a scythe. Occasionally the stronger bark of a larger-caliber rifle would bark out from those of his men tasked to eliminating any enemies with anti-tank weapons capable of piercing their battle armor, but there were precious few of those for the moment, and still more enemies to come.
Amidst the shooting and what was left of the enemy artillery raining down around them, Danielle strode up onto the main deck of the Liberty in full uniform. Her sword dangled from one hip, her sidearm from the other, and a concentrated look on her face as the smoke and stench of battle made her lungs ache and her eyes water. Men were clambering off of one of her boats to the surviving bridge span, re-setting the charges while they were under fire. Around them her fleet had gathered, preparing to race in and get Trajan's men out of their positions as soon as the bridge was finished off. As had happened before, her river fleet was deciding the fate of the city.
The enemy's artillery was slowly starting to change focus on her boats, the forward spotters informing their commanders of the opportunity presented by the bridge's partial survival and the clear Kalundan attempts to finish the job. The shrapnel fire adjusted and started focusing itself around the bridge.
The men hurriedly trying to set the detonators were relatively shielded by the bridge structure, but it was slaughter on Dani's fleet, as every man or woman on deck was under risk of being ripped into by shrapnel. Dani watched one of her deck girls collapse, shrapnel having ripped her guts open, and was pulled away from the deck by a subordinate. "I apologize, Admiral, but it is too dangerous out here!" the woman cried as the boats' decks were abandoned.
They came to the armored door leading to the bridge, and Dani stepped to the side to allow a girl with a wounded arm to be brought through first.
In doing so, she saved her life.... and doomed the girl.
A sudden blast came from within the compartment of the Liberty, courtesy of an anti-tank round fired from shore. The round hit her depleted magazine, which is another thing that saved Dani's life as the explosion was not enough to tear the boat apart immediately and kill her but merely throw her and anyone else on the deck into the dirty, bloodied water of the Kalunda River.
Dani thrashed about in the water. Her full uniform was too heavy to swim well, and as soon as she caught herself going under her hands went down to her jacket. Bubbles and thrashing water obscured her vision as she, in a near panic, shed the uniform down to the strapless silk bra beneath and the shorts under the trousers. Loosened enough to swim, she forced herself to the surface. Her eyes were stinging from the water, her lungs gasping in the squalid and smoky air so quickly that it hurt.
The remains of the Liberty were around her, debris blasted loose while the bulk of the boat was settling on the bottom of the river. Dani looked about and saw a number of figures in the water. She went to one tan-skinned girl and lifted her out of the water, just to see that her throat and chest had been ripped open by shrapnel and she was already dead.
There was a gurgling sound that came to Dani's attention and she looked over to see, amongst the dead and debris, a figure struggling to grasp a piece of debris. She swam over and lifted the arm up to bring the person to the surface. She recognize the girl as Luminia Tuvaia, a commoner Kalundan girl who, while only being nineteen, was already the mother of two daughters who had lost a father in the earlier battles of the siege. "Don't you die on me," Dani muttered to the girl. "Think of your girls and hang on." She pulled the girl's arm over her shoulders and began to kick toward the bridge. It'd be nearly impossible to get back aboard a boat in this artillery barrage.
She soon realized that Luminia was weakening, and looked down to see the pool of blood around them. Oh God, she's wounded.... "We're almost there," she grunted, seeing the shore not too far away.
Dani took another few kicks and a sudden pain went through her right hip and buttock. She cried out, holding on for dear life, and used her free hand to, for a moment, reach back. She felt her ripped flesh and something metallic, and the thought I just got shot in the ass went through her mind (even if it was more likely shrapnel and not a bullet from the south bank).
With only one leg able to move, Dani began to flounder in the water. The girl's weight was pulling her down and the shore was still so far away....
I'm not going to drown here, God dammit I'm not going to survive all of this fucking crap to MOTHER FUCKING DROWN IN THE GOD DAMNED RIVER!!! "Wake up God dammit! Wake up!"
But it was to no avail. Luminia was still unconscious, and both of their heads began to drip below the murky, bloodied surface of the river...
The ammunition was running out, and still the Stirlins came. Trajan gave the order for those without ammunition to withdraw to the water; remaining they did no good, and he wanted to preserve as many as possible.
With his personal weapons out of ammo, Trajan had no weapon save for his body, and it would have to be enough as the reduced volume of fire allowed the Stirlins to grow ever closer. He noticed they were slacking their attack off; undoubtedly waiting to marshal enough numbers to overwhelm his position in one strong push.
"Cowards!" he bellowed. "I am Trajan, a son of the House of Osis, born a warrior of the Smoke Jaguar Clan! The blood of Franklin Osis runs through my veins! This bridge is mine, and I challenge any of you cowards to come and take it from me!. Or are you no better than the Normans and only brave when you are facing the helpless, you stravag barbarian filth?!" When there was no immediate response, Trajan sneered. "I see you are as cowardly as the Normans are, Stirlins! You are no warriors, and you are unworthy of death at my hand!"
The taunt caught the blood of some of the younger and hotheaded Stirlins, young boys and girls who were ready to prove themselves and end the daily abuses they suffered from their own people. They charged forth, screaming, and it prompted the enemy to attack before he was ready. Again Trajan's people let loose with what ammunition they had left, mowing the enemy down even as his sheer numbers allowed him to get closer and closer.
The sky behind them lit up. Trajan looked back in time to see the dust rising from where the bridge's central span had been successfully detonated. The enemy would no longer be able to threaten a crossing here. "All warriors, fall back!" He waved them backward, everyone firing and retreating as they went.
The Stirlin attack did not relent, even with their chance lost. They could still eliminate his unit, after all, depriving the Kalundans of an elite force necessary for the defense of the north. Trajan was determined to prevent his.
The company fell back, their numbers thinning as men went into the river and swam for the evacuation boats, or even jumped from the ruined spans of the bridge onto boats waiting below. The unit was virtually out of ammunition at this point, but they had fallen back to the entry onto the bridge, with only about fifteen or so feet of width. "Sir, we must withdraw!" One of the Talorans grabbed his arm.
"Go, now! I shall cover the unit's escape!" Trajan stepped forward, knowing that the infantry weapons the Stirlins had could not harm him. They rushed for him, their blood up, each eager for a chance to rip his guts out. He could smell their rage in the air, could feel his heart race and the blood of his body flow through him with warmth. A smile crossed his face as he raised his left hand in preparation for the leading Stirlin, an officer of some form. The snarling, long-haired brute was shooting at him, bullets bouncing off his armor, all the way until Trajan's left arm shot forward and his armored left hand gripped the Stirlin by his neck. Trajan squeezed and the Stirlin's spine shattered in his grip. His right hand ripped the sword off the Stirlin's belt and he tossed the dead man to the side.
Another gaggle of Stirlins was next, and they fell to one swipe of Trajan's blade, his strength forcing the steel clear through their necks. They all fell headless before him. Roaring with battlelust to meet the Stirlins' own, Trajan swiped the weapon again and removed the heads of another line of enemies. Their own bloodrage subsided enough that they slowed down a bit, their officers (or what passed for them) trying to get control of their men before they got themselves slaughtered.
The Stirlins were going to bring up anti-armor weapons, Trajan knew, so he took it upon himself to buy his men a bit more time, and make himself a slightly harder target, by attacking. He roared again and dove into their ranks, the men behind them using up the last of their ammunition to prevent any attempts to outflank Trajan until they, too, joined the others getting into the water and onto the boats.
The attention of the Stirlins was entirely upon Trajan at that point. In their midst, he took on an otherworldly aura as the sword he had claimed from their dead cleaved through them, men dying even from the strong blows of his free hand crushing their skulls. With that hand he claimed a warhammer from another Stirlin, both arms flying about and Stirlins dying under them while the mass of troops desperately tried to shoot him with rounds that could not get through the armor on his body.
Soon the Stirlins began to actually retreat, as their officers had desired, but more from the terror that struck their ranks as they saw the battle-armored behemoth scything through them. He was no longer Human, but a Demon....
From a boat off the shore, Ro'takh watched while his men secured the battle armor troops. He could scarcely believe his eyes at the sight, as Trajan scythed through the enemy, a man against an army, and forced them to retreat. His poetic heart rejoiced in what seemed to be the perfect outcome to the Klingon epic that Trajan's life had been.
One of the militiamen looked to Ro'takh from the bow of the little fishing ship he had appropriated to help with the evacuation of the southern bank. "Sir, all are aboard! We must go!"
Ro'takh cupped his hands and shouted, "Trajan! Come, friend!"
He knew it wouldn't matter, that Trajan wouldn't hear him, not just over the whistle of artillery or the roar of battle, but in the roar of Trajan's own heart.
The crimes of the Stirlins were manifold. The murdered villages, the raped children, the slaughtered innocent. Trajan knew that they were in some ways even more evil than the Normans were.
He thought of Juliana. Her pleasant, happy smile. Her soft hands.
He thought of what had been done to her that night. Her tears, her screams, as Tarl Ikmen and his entourage had raped her so viciously, following the Gorean customs of the Norman people.
He thought of the horrors the Stirlins would have visited upon her given the chance.
And he revelled in being able to slaughter them like this.
Trajan had finally been granted the chance to fulfill Franklin Osis' purpose for him, made so long ago. He was a warrior of the Smoke Jaguar Clan, of Osis' own blood, charged with protecting the weak from the strong. He had been given the honor of carrying it out, of protecting the innocent people in Kalunda from the raping, slaughtering hordes of Ar and the Stirlin.
There was the slightest sound in his ear, and Trajan turned away from the slaughter in time to see Ro'takh aboard a vessel, calling out to him. His men had escaped, it was time to go.
He turned and saw the Stirlin anti-tank RPG coming up. A weapon that could shatter Ro'takh's vessel with ease.
He knew what he had to do.
Charging forward, Trajan howled in rage and charged the Stirlin woman with the RPG launcher. She snarled at him and lifted it at him. He brought his warhammer down and shattered her skull, splattering her brains.
Her finger tensed.
In death, she pulled the trigger on the launcher.
The RPG slammed into his chest and exploded, blowing apart the woman's body. The armor blew away under the impact, exposing Trajan's chest. The explosion ripped through his body and threw him backward, shards of his armor being pressed through the incinerated flesh. Pain shot through, hot pain like he'd never felt before.
Feet pressed down on him. He felt blades press into the unarmored flesh, cutting him and striking his stomach. He felt the steel cut through his guts and roared in agony. His left fist clenched and his warhammer went up, bashing the brains out of a Stirlin standing over him.
But there were too many.
A roar of gunfire filled the air and men cleared from around Trajan. He forced himself up, ignoring the pain in his belly. He dropped the warhammer and put his left hand over his wounds, keeping his intestines from coming out. Bleeding heavily, he forced himself to the shore and waded into the river, coming up to his neck until he arrived at the fishing boat Ro'takh commanded. Ro'takh's militamen kept up their fire, spraying the shore with bullets and preventing the Stirlins from attacking again.
Straining with every muscle, Trajan roared and used both arms to begin pulling himself onto the boat. One, then two, and finally up to five men helped pull him aboard, his weight initially so much that the boat listed hard and he feared it would capsize.
It's motor roared to life and it pulled away from the shore just as artillery from one of the few remaining gunboats ripped through the Norman formation. Trajan was brought to the main deck, where Ro'takh kneeled over him. "Trajan! Trajan, my friend..."
Every word was pain as Trajan spoke. "I... did my warriors.... get clear?"
"They did, friend." Ro'takh looked down at Trajan's massive chest and all of the blood and gore there, the incineration from the RPG joined by the strong stabs of the Stirlins.
"I..." Trajan coughed and blood came from his mouth. "Juliana...."
"She will be taken care of, Trajan. One way or the other, she will be taken care of." Ro'takh clasped hands with the fallen warrior. "Trajan, you saved our lives and those of your men. The entire city, in fact, has been saved due to you."
"I... have finally... succeeded....in something..." Trajan grinned bitterly, coughing up more blood.. "I... I am going to die.... friend... Please.... go to Lootera... Huntress... my sibkin.... go to Tristan, the warrior who.... trained me.... let them know how I died.... let them know what I have done.... honorable or not.... They deserve that... much..."
"I will do that, dear friend." Ro'takh nodded to him, drawing close so that Trajan could hear him in his final moments. "I will tell all of what you have done. I will tell the Princess itl dhin Intuit that you have fulfilled your oath to her to your last breath, and I will tell all of your story. My friend, Klingons will sing your name for the next thousand years."
Trajan smiled at that, but his reply was lost in a cough of blood.
"Go to Sto'Vo'Kor, Trajan, and join your ancestors. I look forward to seeing you again at it's gates...."
Trajan nodded weakly at that. His head fell back, his chest stilled, and he was dead.
Ro'takh looked down at the stilled body of the warrior he had so recently befriended for several long seconds, even as the roars of battle echoed around them still, the Stirlins shelling the boats as they left the area.
Then his head shot up, and looking up at the smoke-filled sky, a roar came from Ro'takh's lungs, the death howl of tradition to mourn the passing of another.
Dani's body was pulled from the river by a passing boat and forced aboard by the men of the Abigail Adams, one of her newest and few surviving gunboats. She was laid out on the deck, her lips turning blue, her eyes shut. "She's not breathing!" one of the men shouted, leaning over her. Having been trained in CPR, as all river personnel, he began to thrust down on her stomach, while another man ran over and leaned over her head. At the signal he breathed into her mouth.
From the bridge, the ship confirmed they'd found her, and informed King Julio that she wasn't breathing.
"C'mon, get up Admiral...." another man muttered as those without duties watched their crewmates try desperately to revive her. Another round of chest presses and breaths went by and nothing happened. They started another....
Nothing happened.
East Port Heights.
All along the lines of the international forces, the orders were quietly given. Soldiers slipped into their power armour. Soldiers without it finished strapping on their general body protection armour and pulled on the rest of their NBC gear. Gas masks were set and seals were checked for integrity. The forward scouting lines were already prepared for this eventuality. Railroad cars fitted with heavy missiles from the ships in orbit had been arrayed to serve as their launching platforms in a ground-to-ground role.
The Duchess of Medina's command vehicle was fully staffed now, and the tense Talorans around her were waiting for the orders. There was every reason to be tense: Thanks to the stand of the Cartagenean Corps up there, the battle would certainly involve as many nuclear weapons as a full scale engagement between two modern powers. The question, however, was if the electronics and defences of the Gileans were up to it, especially spread out defensively over so broad an area.
“Don't target their reinforcements, dear,” the Duchess of Medina said offhandedly, addressing her husband. He turned quizzically...
“I believe we can compel the old Cartagenean Armoured Division to surrrender, you see,” she explained at last. “General Rosario was their patron and old commander, and her disappearance has left their morale at rock bottom. They hate Covington. So don't touch them with the nuclear missiles, in none of the targeting plans. That will let us focus more effectively on the enemy's main lines and crack them.”
“Understood, General.”
Her Chief of Staff nodded sharply, and that left the matter of targeting clear, though a moment later, he—Brigadier General Iralan—spoke up again to clarify: “Which one of the advance patterns are we using?”
“The general advance by armour with close nuclear support. We'll reverse the usual order, hold the infantry and their support vehicles back. They can sweep the rabble off the field once we've cracked their cohesion. I want this nuclear assault to look like it was one from the Arlos War...”
A brief moment of silence. The reintegration of the Arlos system with its double-planet had proved a particularly brutal conflict.
“We have copious supply in orbit, my officers. We will face no organized foe at all. Use all our nuclear devices. Overwhelm them. Our defences will prove better than their's, and what follows will be a slaughter.
“We will coordinate the main paths of advance for the northern and southern forces to pass on both sides of the central position held by the Cartagenean Armoured Division. I want to put our very strongest nuclear barrage on the left-centre and right-centre of the enemy...” She brought up the areas of the tactical plot she had been considering. “So that the tanks can move through unimpeded by any sort of resistance. They can surround the Cartagenean Armoured and after we've forced it to surrender turn out and annihilate the flanks of the enemy which will shall be separated from each other and unable to support each other... As for the great bulk of the local levies, our non-nuclear artillery can be well serviced by keeping them under a continuous cloud of nerve gas. They don't have nearly enough chemical warfare equipment, or experience, to handle such an environment.”
It was another thirty minutes while the final preparations for the designated operations were begun. Finally, at 0930 hours that morning, the last of the units reported their readiness to the Duchess of Medina. The tanks rumbled with their fans whirring and shields up, waiting hull-down for the order to go. The infantry tensed in their vehicles, as protected as they could be, and wondered if they would be unlucky... The artillerists dialed in their first targets for their lethal cargoes, and adjusted the yields of the nuclear warheads where applicable. The scouts prepared their positions to withstand the nuclear firestorm that would be rising ahead of them.
The Duchess smiled vaguely, bowed her head, closed her eyes, crossed her arms at the wrists across her chest, and prayed. She was still in the position of obesience to the Lord of Justice when she gave the order, scarcely more than a murmur. “Commence the operation.”
Three hundred tactical nuclear missiles leapt from their launching rails within four seconds of each other and accelerated at an average of around one hundred gravities, covering the distance to the enemy formations some thirty klicks off from the launchers at an average speed over the whole distance of 4,700 meters per second. The missiles took seven seconds on average to traverse the entire distance.
Automatic defensive cannon and anti-missile launchers on the lines of the defending Gileans picked up on them and immediately responded. The incredible power of the defensive arrangements of even a third-rate corps in prepared positions was demonstrated in the fact that 289 of the missiles were shot down before their nuclear warheads could be initiated. The other eleven successfully initiated.
For a moment the whole ridge was obscured in massive balls of fire far greater than the intensity of suns. Thousands of unprepared local levies simply ceased to exist. Tanks were shattered and tumbled around the field of battle with melted gun barrels at the immediate point-blank range as eleven devices with yields ranging from 500kT to 700kT spread incredible heat in the areas defined by their hypocentres. Countless men were given lethal doses of radiation by the minimum fallout, maximum output fusion weapons which hundreds of years of nuclear research had gifted the international forces.
The formation of mushroom clouds was impossible because of the theatre shields over the position, and the hot gasses of the detonations crackled against them and weakened them, revealing the shields in the air as they were contorted into strange shapes by the energetic interactions and pushed back down to obscure vast areas of the Gilean lines in a radioactive fogbank. The result of that was thousands of more unprotected individuals quickly being given lethal doses of radiation. Some twelve thousand were killed or mortally wounded outright in the first salvo, and ninety-two MBTs destroyed along with three hundred lesser armoured vehicles.
The response of the Cartagenean Corps was immediate, however. The full corps artillery sent a salvo of 400 nuclear-tipped missiles flung right back at the international forces. These weapons were weaker, though, their dial-a-yield settings reduced because they were firing toward their own city of East Port and worried about fallout. They were also much older designs, with much older electronics on the missiles, and the defences of the international forces were considerably better. As a result, though a third-again as many missiles were fired, even fewer of them got through: Eight in all. The settings also meant they were only delivering yields of 150kT each.. And the international MBTs had their own integrated shielding, along with most of the heaviest IFVs and all the command vehicles and shield and gunnery platforms.
As a result only seventeen MBTs and thirty-eight other IFVs were lost outright with some 500 in vehicles killed, though casualties in the rear areas were also heavy as the less-protected there were more heavily exposed; 920 international forces soldiers died immediately, in levels shocking for those who hadn't seen extremely heavy nuclear ground combat before, but very typical for this sort of fighting in a general sense, light, even, considering the obsolete nature of the opposition. It was actually a very poor showing for the Gileans, with many of their missiles going wide from ideal targets, and virtually all the international forces' troops in vehicles which could survive anything and still fight, save being directly engulfed in the fireball.
The next salvo from the international batteries was re-calibrated immediately and sent after the Cartagenean Corps' nuclear batteries. Their response to the enemy's defences was improving as they learned methods of getting around the anemic Gilean technology. Nineteen missiles got through this time, and they wiped out half of the Gilean nuclear batteries, though killing rather fewer since they weren't targeted at the infantry, only nine thousand killed or given fatal radiation doses instantaneously. The Gileans bravely responded with their remaining 207 missiles, all other nuclear missile reserves having been expended firing at the landing forces or defensively at aerospace fighters beforehand.
These missiles were targeted at the enemy's nuclear batteries, more daringly toward the rear and East Port—though they were dialed down again to 120kT to compensate with a better safety margin--and several fell around the General Faeria in the same position, which survived unscathed but with her energy shielding collapsed, General Arshon's—Priscilla Laurentii's—command viciously rocked on the steel rails as the competing nuclear blasts buffeted it with near misses. Even the Duchess of Medina's command hover-vehicle was rocked. Six of the enemy's nukes got through and these better-aimed weapons than the first salvo knocked out 60 of the International forces' improvised nuclear launchers and inflicted another 970 outright fatalities.
The last salvo of 240 missiles was readied from the international forces' launchers. These were targeted directly at the anti-missile systems to open up a path for the remaining sixty-three missiles which some of the other races' launchers, with more copious reserves, had. These systems were well-dispersed and collateral casualties were light. Six thousand of the Gilean defenders—as with the other times, predominantly the locals and the militia—were killed or mortally wounded by radiation outright as seven missiles got through. The Gilean anti-missile defences proved much more resilient than was expected, however, and when the final salvo was thrown against them a minute later, they succeeded in downing all but four. This last salvo had been concentrated at the lines, however, and was more than violent enough for only four warheads initiating, killing eight thousand of the defenders or mortally wounding them outright.
All of the heavy nuclear weapons had now been expended on both sides. Only .4 – 6.5kT nuclear recoiless rifle or anti-tank missiles were now available to both sides, and artillery shells of essentially identical yields. Around eight hundred of these had already been fired by each side, and 91% of these much slower and easier to disable or destroy weapons had been shot down by the Gileans and 96% by the international forces. The rest had served to inflict 460 fatalities on the international forces and 4,900 on the much more weakly protected Gileans. Huge gaps had been torn in the Gilean lines, and out of nearly 400,000 defenders, 32,000 of them had been killed in the first five minutes of the engagement and twice that number had been wounded. In comparison 2,350 international forces soldiers had been killed, and a roughly equal number wounded (the shielding of the international vehicles meant that unless utterly destroyed the crews suffered little) and the Gileans had essentially already entirely exhausted their weapons capable of inflicting further casualties on the international forces.
The graphic nature of those technological force disparities was now made brutally clear. Though 24% of the Gilean force had been killed or wounded in the first five minutes of the fighting, at least nominally they had the strength to continue to contest the heights: Only 11,000 of those 96,000 casualties had been from the men of the 145,000-strong Cartagenean Corps. The other 85,000, including by far almost all the fatalities, were among the militia of East Port which had chosen to support Covington, and the primitive zone forces, which were totally unprepared for this form of warfare. Considerably less than 300 of the 1,250 MBTs dug in to fight hull-down along the ridges had been destroyed or disabled. It seemed like they might still fight well and hold the ridge...
But now the batteries of the international forces' artillery were, having gained the advantage through the nuclear missile strikes, reducing the Gilean artillery with N-squared efficiency, annihilating even the highly dispersed and mobile self-propelled launchers with coordinated attacks using 5 - 6.5kT yield shells in sufficient quantities to overwhelm the anti-shell lasers, while the numbers of the rapidly dwindling Gilean artillery were insufficient to punch any of their own shells through the international defences for the rest of the battle, save around a half-dozen flukes of luck and fate. These shells furthermore inflicted considerable additional casualties among the unprotected local defenders.
In the meanwhile, the hovertanks and their scout-fighting vehicle escorts were closing at speeds of up to 200km/h against the Gilean lines from starting points roughly 25km away. The massive Taloran RGH-167 MBHTs, 250 metric tonne monsters capable of 200km/h and equipped with their own energy shields and 240mm powerguns, raced their slightly smaller but equally fast Slavian counterparts into the first contact with the enemy tanks preparing to fight their desperate struggle hull-down.
During those four additional minutes between the end of the nuclear missile exchanges and the arrival of the armoured fist of the international forces, the nuclear artillery support they were being provided had casually caused another 8,000 fatalities—all but a thousand among the poorly protected primitives and local militia—and nearly 20,000 wounded, while essentially suppressing the Gilean artillery. Another 5,000 fatalities, none of those in the Cartagenean corps, had been caused by the massive clouds of highly potent advanced nerve gasses being used by the conventional artillery of the international forces firing with maximum rapidity. More than 47,000 sentients died in the first 10 minutes of the fighting, at a ratio of twenty-three Gileans to one international soldier. The death toll would have been much higher if the Gilean regulars hadn't at least insured every single one of the defenders had a gas mask and was in highly prepared and reinforced entrenchments which were widely dispersed over a very large area of the plateau, instead of the tight defensive lines with which they were familiar.
As the international MBTs approached the enemy positions, the scouting and support IFVs abruptly launched mass salvoes of light nuclear-tipped anti-tank missiles on fire-and-forget mode and equally large numbers of recoiless rifle rounds, before turning and hastily retiring from the field. The defensive lasers on the dug-in Gilean tanks shot almost all of these down, and only another fourty-two Gilean MBTs were lost and about another 1,000 defenders killed instantly, but in doing so they unmasked their positions to the international MBTs...
The experience of Sergeant Trilisia Raujhm's five-soldier crew on the RGH-167:60789 was typical. The whole crew was in full NBC gear ontop of being in a fully sealed and radiation-shielded heavy MBHT with full energy shielding around the hull in turn. Through their suits they were wired into neural interfaces with the hovertank's computer system that allowed them to control all aspects of its operation instantaneously. As the energy of dozens of small nuclear events faded from the immediate vicinity, their visual sensors resolved the scene...
And suddenly a vast array of targets were overlaid as inter-vehicle datalinks conveyed all the information about the detected laser-firing positions, a grid interlinked with the visual scene perfectly, providing all the real-time target data they needed. The commander of their armoured brigade observed it, and immediately coordinated two salvoes of nuclear anti-tank missiles from the rack launchers fitted to the MBHTs themselves, expending their small supply of the weapons, but to good effect as they undercut the preparations of the Gileans to respond to another larger salvo.
Bodies were burning alive as the nukes detonated, flash-fried skeletons visible vaguely through the sensor feeds as the intense light faded and cracked entrenchments were revealed through the murky dust using low-visibility sensors, while craters from these small ground-bursts were navigated around and Gilean tanks were visible, having been ripped out of their positions half-underground and flung like toys by virtually point-blank hits. The tank shuddered with the shockwaves and then shuddered again...
The enemy was scarcely out of the fight. To avoid being destroyed in place they'd revved up and burst out of position and were going in close, firing shield-penetrators from their conventional guns, where the shells released a burst of energy to temporarily short out shields and then send a supra-dense sabot flinging from inside the shield barrier up against the side of the enemy tank, a clever adaptation of a technologically inferior foe.
But it wasn't an adaptation that could penetrate the side-armour of an RGH-167, even at close range. “Ghisimi! Main gun target fifty-nine degrees! Full power!” Trilisia snapped out in short succession. The turret rapidly traversed to fifty-nine degrees relative and the gunner, Corporal Ghisimi Savan, dialed in on the tank that had fired at them while the engineer on the tank, Iluvan Erash, dumped all available energy into the powergun's capacitors. The whole process took just three seconds under neural interface control and then the gun fired. No Gilean tank in existence had even frontal armour capable of repelling a 240mm powergun bolt. The tank exploded into a fireball instantaneously, its turret flung up into the air and a flaming body being violently ejected from it.
“Forward! Fifty kmh!” The forward-motion turbojets on the tank whined as the massive ground-effect fans rotated under the armoured skirt at full power, driving past the smashed out hulk as part of an armoured company movement which had already casually destroyed eighty-one Gilean tanks without a single loss, the driver Arisia guiding the massive vehicle forward through an eerie nuclear wasteland as immensely bright flashes from the action still very distant activated automatic darkening components in the sensors repeatedly.
“APC seventeen degrees!”
The turret swung around..
“MBT three fourty degrees..”
“Take the APC first!” Trilisia snapped, and the powergun immediately fired. The APC simply crumpled, ripped apart without even the sequence of events needed for an impressive secondary. “Second target, engage! Speed 100kmh!” A shot imbedded itself into the right flank armour of the tank's skirt, denting it, but not enough to threaten the operation of the blades. The turret swung and the powergun fired again. Another tank exploded.
“Watch out, 60789! There's an enemy tank platoon at six hundred meters, three hundred degrees relative and still hull down!”
“Full stop! Vilasia, get those bunkers! Reverse 50kmh—action right!”
“Prepared for rapid fire!”
A series of shells struck close around the tank as she swayed and backpedaled, the turret desperately manoeuvring to swing in and suddenly lay down a series of three rapid-fire shots into the position of the hull-down platoon. They missed. In the meantime the 2cm powergun calliope had been counter-mobile, swinging back in the opposite direction to rake a bunker which might not still have life in with enough power to definitely riddle it and open it to the radioactive atmosphere just outside.
Then two shots rocked the tank, and Ghisimi cried in rage even as she fired again with another miss: “They've jammed the turret!”
“Pull us back, Arisi, and see if you can shake it loose..” As the 60789 fell back, however, it attracted the attention of the platoon long enough for the other three tanks in its section to come up, and with viciously accurate shooting, prepared for the encounter unlike the 60789 had been, they rapidly destroyed three of the enemy MBTs with their first three shots and very quickly began to pick apart the rest of the platoon before it could manoeuvre out of its hull-down positions and retire.
The 60789, useless with its turret jammed, retired safely from the field, where NBC-recovery equipment was waiting to blast down the hull in powerful cleansing solvents and radiation dampers, before a special outer ablative microfilm on the whole of the tank's outer surface which served to absorb radiation was treated with a chemical spray which made it turn to a viscuous liquid in moments, a liquid which was easily sprayed off the tank by compressed nitrogen blowers, the ground under the tank then being sealed by a plastic spray to prevent radioactive dust from rising, or ground-water contamination, and a new ablative layer was applied to the whole tank. With the aide of several remote-controlled robots, the NBC clearing vehicle was able to clean, slough off the ablative, and re-apply another coating, in a total of three minutes—and do it to six MBHTs simultaneously They were now again safe enough that their crews could eat off their outer hulls, and the 60789 could immediately report to have its turret safely repaired.
On the heights the battle had of course continued, and it had continued like nothing else imaginable. The primitives had ended up committing the worst and last error of their lives. They had started to flee in mass. In doing so they opened themselves up to sustained attack by conventional weapons in areas that the defensive weaponry of the Cartagenean Corps was unprepared to support them in. Tens of thousands of cluster munition-packed shells were scattered over them and explosive flechette packs tore through the fleeing men, while a few 5kT-range nuke shells and plenty of nerve gas shells added to the utterly lethal mix. This phase of the battle, more really a sort of massacre, was rapidly becoming the most deadly.
Fighting had been ongoing for about 90 minutes, now, and during the last 80 minutes of the engagement another 20,000 primitives had been killed as the battle became largely conventional, but the armour was now doing it's work, and the material question was rapidly becoming the more crucial. All along the heights of the plateau the evidence of the massive superiourity of the international armour was shown in the endless visages of burned out, blasted, and shattered Gilean armoured vehicles. They had tried to stand, and their fire had more or less bounced harmlessly off the massive international MBHTs. Since the fighting had begun, the international forces had lost 31 of the 500 such massive tanks destroyed outright or disabled from all sources. The Gileans had lost 663--more than half. 94 out of 1,000 medium tanks and APCs in the international forces had been destroyed or disabled; the Gileans had lost 51% of their strength in those vehicle types.
Hundreds of nuclear devices of all sizes had initiated over the massive battlefield which was strung, end to end, over perhaps a hundred kilometers in length and fourty-five in depth between the two sides engaged with each other in the sprawling and deadly contest. Clouds of nerve gas and radioactive materials mingled insensibility in a mad chaos. And now the fleeing primitive troops, though they had managed to at least get well to the rear before it happened, were subjected to a bombardment which as noted had killed 30,000 more of them in the course of another 20 minutes.
In the meanwhile, the two prongs of the international armoured advance were swinging to engulf the heretofore unengaged and largely untouched Cartagenean Armoured Division. This mainstay, the reserve of the defences, was under General Rulos' direct command to hold in place even as the other two divisions—which were very much pro-Covington forces, unlike General Rosario's old command—had their armour torn apart in the effort to stop the enemy advance and suffered 20,000 casualties of their own, nearly half those suffered by the Cartagenean Corps so far, and were flung back out of the battlefield, retreating with more than 85% of each division's tanks annihilated in less than two hours of sustained combat, leaving the burning debris of thousands of vehicles, as well as the fried, shot, irradiated, run-over, and ground-up bodies of more than 100,000 dead and dying strewn across the plateau.
General Rulos, realizing that the flanks of the Cartagenean Armoured Division were becoming a vicious trap for the strangely untouched reserves, ordered them forward. Until, that is, intelligence was steadily gathered that showed the main bulk of the APC-bourne and heavy power-armoured infantry of the enemy, along with their MBHT reserves, pushing up directly toward the centre, the Duchess of Medina having seemingly inexplicably ordered a vicious head-to-head confrontation rather than going after the 'easy meat' of the fleeing primitives, or finishing off the East Port militia formations which had stood their ground just to get massacred by the APCs and the troops they'd disgorged, the remnants of those units still fighting despite having taking 10,000 casualties of their own. To go forward now was to tempt Cannae, and even though he might destroy the equivalent of an enemy division in going down...
I'd just condemn another thirty thousand of my boys to death, the General concluded with a heavy, heavy heart. Very unwilling ones, who preferred, as he, to serve a far better leader than Covington ever could have.
“Contact the enemy commander,” he ordered quietly. “Now. While there's still time.”
Soon, the familiar and strange accent of the Taloran General could be heard filling Rulos' mobile command post. “General Rulos, you would not contact me now without good reason, and I assume we both know this reason...”
“Yes,” Rulos rasped in response. “I want a cease-fire to negotiate the surrender of my men.” He was not certain if the Talorans were accept such a request or not...
“Granted.” Frayuia didn't even have to think about it. “We are halting fire immediately and pulling back for safety. Signal all of your units to do the same, General Rulos. At once. I have had enough of this wanton butchery. The honour of your army is upheld; now, you must be a moral man. Secure your units, and then we will arrange a meeting to discuss the terms of surrender.”
Two hours and four minutes after the battle had begun, the guns fell silent all along the ridgelines and the plateau. The theatre shields were deactivated, and the radioactive clouds allowed to escape and be dispersed into the atmosphere where their continued saturation would not utterly devastate the ground. Sunlight began to filter in through the eerie cloud formations and illuminate the field; it seemed like the battle might really be over.
Good desires far apart from grim reality, the fact was that the tough old Caliphal mercenary, General Neguib, had sworn an oath to a fellow Muslim in the al-Farani Emirate to fight to his last strength. And the political cronies commanding the 46th armoured and 37th mechanized divisions were still alive. The remnants of these severely battered divisions and whatever forces that Neguib could muster began to slip away to the rear in a disorderly fashion, with Neguib essentially in overall command.
It didn't take long for satellite intelligence to inform the Duchess of Medina, even as General Rulos' staff were desperately trying to contact the units to compel them to surrender, and being grimly ignored. A few of the theatre-shield units went with them, and could provide a modicum of defence from above...
“General Rulos, are the retreating units under your command?”
“No,” the Hispanic affirmed harshly. “They have disobeyed my orders. I think one of the mercenaries working for the primitives, a fellow by the name of Neguib, is behind this—though Covington had political cronies in command of the other divisions. If you must resume hostilities against them, I will provide all the information I can to distinguish those units from the legitimately surrendered, to avoid repercussions...”
“Do so, General. But I want you at the same time to personally come down here yourself.”
“I understand, Your Grace.”
I should have known better than to trust a force with a Moor as a high commander, Frayuia thought disgustedly. At least 43,000 troops of the Cartagenean corps were getting clean away, along with however many of the primitives could possibly contemplate fighting again after that conflagration from Hell. With the need to secure the surrendered units between her and the retiring forces, they could not immediately pursue. Most of the vehicles needed to be cleaned off from severe radiation exposure, anyway...
Well, they shall, at least, not pose any serious threat to us again. Their nukes are essentially expended—I would not be surprised if the retreating forces only have two or three dozen of the lightest type left—and their numbers are less than a third of those in modern troops they once enjoyed. She concentrated after that on the reports of the final casualty lists from the battle for the international forces, and it was this list that she was reviewing when, an hour and twenty minutes later, General Rulos arrived and his command vehicle was decontaminated to allow him to exit and approach Frayuia's.
As he entered the command centre from which Frayuia had directed the course of the battle—his NBC gear removed in the airlock--she tapped in a command, and the holo-tank shifted to show a view of the casualty lists for her own forces, and the estimates for the enemy:
International:
3,219 KIA confirmed.
488 MIA estimate.
7,070 WIA estimate.
38 MBTs destroyed or disabled, confirmed.
92 IFVs and medium tanks destroyed or disabled, confirmed.
6 IFVs unaccounted for.
102 artillery pieces and missile launchers destroyed.
Cartagenean Corps and Militia:
Corps:
approx. 45,000 casualties.
approx. 60,000 surrendered.
approx 40,000 escaped.
Militia:
20,000 casualties.
20,000 surrendered.
Primitives:
approx. 90,000 killed out of 210,000, and at least 80,000 wounded.
“General Rulos, was it worth it?”
The man stared up at the blaring, bright green figures and hovered, mouth open, in quiet shock. It was only now that the magnitude of the slaughter reached him, of the men who had insisted to stay.. And nearly half of them had paid the ultimate price for it because they had no conception of what the fight would be like.
He drew his sword.. And threw it to the floor of the command centre. “I have no honour left, General, for me to offer you. I should not have let this battle reach such a mad point.”
Frayuia smiled gently and stood up, walking slowly around the holoprojector as her daughters watched and wondered about what would happen. She bent down, herself, and picked up the sword, looking it over, and then, with a bow and a flourish, offered it to the utterly broken General who seemed now on the verge of utter emotional and mental collapse.
“General Rulos, keep your sword. And keep in mind, also, that the Lord of Justice has mercy in His infinite heart. You did your duty to the country you had sworn a sacred oath to defend. Now it is your's, also to seek forgiveness for what that required, for what that became. What was done out of noble and honourable intentions can certainly be forgiven in time.
“Now, as for the matter of the surrender.”
“I will accept whatever your terms are, Your Grace,” he half-mumbled.
“Then I will moderate them as though we had actually negotiated,” she answered. “I'll grant all your officers, militia and regulars, parole, with swords and sidearms for defence. The regular soldiers will be disarmed and, if belonging to a community which has sided with the international forces, will be released. Otherwise they will be quartered in the houses of the citizens of East Port and not allowed to leave that city until the cessation of hostilities, on penalty of field execution for violating the terms of their surrender. Your officers on parole, yourself included, may go wherever you please as long as you do not take up arms against the international forces. Any officers who refuse parole will be imprisoned in the fleet above until a final determination of their status can be made.”
“You.. You are very merciful, Your Grace..”
“No! Not mercy..” Frayuia sighed. “I have just killed to many people in my life to suffer from the malady of vengeance ever again. Now go, General, and see to the parole of your men.”
Genera Rulos saluted stiffly and turned, leaving with a single security guard as an escort.
Frayuia looked around for a long moment. Her eyes fell on her chief of staff, and avoided her family. “Inform General Lazarevic of the terms of surrender and that he should begin processing the prisoners. He is in temporary charge until tomorrow, when the situation should be ordered enough for us to begin the dash to Kalunda.”
“Of course, General.”
Frayuia nodded at the acknowledgement, and turned away from all, her ears down. She went straight back to the little room reserved for her personal confessor. Nothing else could possibly be suitable at the moment, or possible to think about, than to acknowledge to God that as the collateral damage for cracking the defensive position of the Cartagenean Corps, she had slaughtered perhaps ninety thousand primitives incapable of genuine resistance, who, whatever their crimes, her noble heart could not permit her to think deserving of being subjected to such a one-sided butchery.
But if they are desperate, or hopeless enough, I will have to execute several more before this is done. And for the reason to that, also, I must trust Farzbardor and Him only.
DAY 50
Kalunda Riverfront.
The old stone bridge was near the edge of the equally old city walls. It had been built upstream of all the piers and quays of the old city so that sailing ships could dock downstream of it. Upstream of the bridge the water levels of the river gradually declined to the point that only barge traffic was possible, and Kalunda had never had any desire of allowing sailing ships and other large vessels to go past it, even including, and perhaps especially, the big steel barges which brought goods from the outside world. It made the city profitable, a wall across the river as much as a bridge.
Fourty stone arches carried the bridge across the river, with approaches built on fill on either side. The modern vehicle/pedestrian cantilever bridge had been blasted down fairly easily enough when Jhayka's orders reached King Julio, and he decided to act upon them, trusting the words of his Marshal even when she was just recovered from injuries which had come within the barest thread of taking her life.
By this point, Trajan had got most of his battalion back across the old bridge. Leading a single company he remained behind, refusing the entreaties of the Taloran corporal, Rishiva, who had ended up one of the company commanders in the force, to keep a stronger guard until the bridge had been blown. He had sent her away and resolved to stand with a single company.
The enemy's attacks were falling fast and hard upon their position. The artillery, though, was only firing shrapnel to avoid damaging the bridge, and this made it easy to withstand in their power armour. Elements of a full Stirlin infantry division were involved against them, but fighting out on the highly built-up bridge approaches, there was scarcely any room for a mass of men to approach them.
All around the crossfire was murderous, but as long as limited numbers of men were forced to push down the causeways on the bridge approaches proper, to actually get at his positions, they couldn't overwhelm the defending company. Perhaps even after they'd expended their ammunition they could hold... But they shouldn't be placed in such a position where that was necessary.
Then the explosives on part of the spans of the bridge failed. There were a total of thirty-four arched spans across the bridge, some of varying size, and a simple mistake had placed a charge for one of the main spans on one of the narrower spans. This might seem like overkill, but actually it was the reverse. The main spans, longer, had more structural stresses and weight, and were easier to collapse. The massive medieval construction of the shorter arched spans made them much more resistance, and in the middle of the blown-down sections, a lonely arched section of the bridge was left.
As the dust cleared, the magnitude of the issue was obvious to all of them, including Trajan himself. "They can bridge it now!" He growled outloud, and cursed to himself, having learned enough about this sort of combat to know full-well that the Stirlins could bring up bridging equipment across the gaps.
Admiral Danielle Verdes had a problem of her own with the attrited remnants of her river flotilla. She could try to evacuate both remaining garrisons on the south bank at once, or take one, and then the other. Her fleet was facing murderous fire, and was already very weak, even with all the last civilian craft conscripted-and they could not last long. The orders to evacuate the remnant garrisons had been unwanted at best, and a short battalion remained for her to get off around the remnants of the New Bridge.
To keep her force together for the best protection against the enemy, she had elected to evacuate it first, simultaneously, with every resource available. It seemed obvious that Trajan's men could wait longer in their power armour. Then the failure of the centre span to be destroyed added a major kink in those plans. It would have to be taken out. The city now lacked the heavy artillery to do; men would have to be landed on the section and new charges set.
That would require vessels from her force, vessels would be lethally exposed if sent alone, while slowing the evacuation operation. A grim decision would have to be made; Trajan would have to hold with his company until the first evacuation had finished, and then serve as a distraction while new charges were set by the whole of the massed flotilla, which could then only take them off in the usual stages, one platoon covering the others in the company, and then a few men covering the rest before swimming for it.
Danielle was brutally aware, too, that the river was untenable for her once-proud flotilla now. This would be their last mission; they would take losses on it; and the surviving boats would then be grounded in the well-protected canals, stripped of arms, and their crews sent to the lines. It was a last hurrah, and one that might also kill every single one of them left...
But I know that Jhayka is awake again, and sent these orders. Julio said as much. The relieve force is coming and cannot be long in arriving. We can hope again! We can live again! Hang on, Trajan, we're coming for you. The enemy's artillery got lucky, and one of her last gunboats shuddered bodily and began to list, though it still doggedly plowed forward in the muddy and waste-strewn waters of the Kalundas to cover the civilian craft taking off the battalion. It was a reminder, but also damage that would make their continued operations that much more dangerous, and take that much longer to execute.
Trajan would have a while to wait with his men. And somehow Danielle knew that even when they had been rescued, the brave and powerful Clansman would be the last to leave the position, fighting for the honour of a liege-lady of a foreign species, who three months before he had not even known to exist, and to protect the men over whom she had given him responsibility. But that was his way, and saving him-that would be her's.
DAY 47
Soon combat would begin again, and Trajan relished the opportunity to rest and prepare himself for it. His unit had been in action for very long, much longer than Clan warriors were typically accustomed to.
Perhaps that was why the Clans were destroyed, he thought to himself. Our ways acted to minimize violence with ritual and tradition. To these people it is neither, but total and unyielding. Fighting until one side has been crushed. Maybe that is why....
"Ah, my friend, I thought I would find you here!"
Trajan looked up from the ration he was eating at the sound of the crackly, hoarse voice of Ro'takh. The elder Klingon was in a tattered uniform. "Ro'takh, you are doing well?"
"Yes. I have cheated Death much in these past few days," the old scholar-monk boasted. "It has been glorious."
"It has," Trajan agreed. He placed his ration down.
"They say that the river fleet extracted your liege out from under the enemy," Ro'takh said. "It has been a good day."
"Certainly, but I have heard her survival is still uncertain," Trajan replied sullenly.
"I see. But no fear, for she has a warrior's spirit as well, and I have no doubts that she will survive." Ro'takh looked up. "It was good to see you again, Trajan. I hope to share bloodwine with you after the city is relieved and our victory is secured."
"Before you go, Ro'takh, I would ask a favor of you."
"What is it, Trajan?"
"Juliana." Trajan looked up to him. "Should the Princess and I both fall, should none be left to watch over her.... I ask that you find her a place where she will be happy."
"I swear on my honor that it will be so," Ro'takh promised him. Taking out a blade, he cut his palm and let his blood drip to the soil. "On my blood, your charge will have the life you desire for her."
"Thank you, my friend."
DAY 50
The roar of weapons echoed continuously through the air as Trajan's company held fast. The weapon in his arms roared continuously as he and his soldiers held out for evacuation.
The fate of the city was in his hands. The fate of the Princess Jhayka, of her lover Danielle, of the priestess Illavna, of his friend Ro'takh, all came down to Trajan holding out long enough for Danielle's ships to finish the evacuation and bring the bridge down.
The enemy shrapnel fire was harmless, and the Stirlins came across his position with increasing ferocity, leaving piles of their dead on the approaches to the bridge while his company poured fire into them.
But ammunition was starting to run low. It had, in fact, been running long for a long while, but there had been the promise of resupply from meager reserves until the bridge had been blown. Now they only had what they had. Trajan ordered his troops to conserve fire as much as possible, even if they let the Stirlins get closer, as the purpose here was to stall them until the bridge's central span could be eliminiated.
The thunderous roar of their guns lessened, but did not fully end, bullets cutting down Stirlin soldiers like so much wheat before a scythe. Occasionally the stronger bark of a larger-caliber rifle would bark out from those of his men tasked to eliminating any enemies with anti-tank weapons capable of piercing their battle armor, but there were precious few of those for the moment, and still more enemies to come.
Amidst the shooting and what was left of the enemy artillery raining down around them, Danielle strode up onto the main deck of the Liberty in full uniform. Her sword dangled from one hip, her sidearm from the other, and a concentrated look on her face as the smoke and stench of battle made her lungs ache and her eyes water. Men were clambering off of one of her boats to the surviving bridge span, re-setting the charges while they were under fire. Around them her fleet had gathered, preparing to race in and get Trajan's men out of their positions as soon as the bridge was finished off. As had happened before, her river fleet was deciding the fate of the city.
The enemy's artillery was slowly starting to change focus on her boats, the forward spotters informing their commanders of the opportunity presented by the bridge's partial survival and the clear Kalundan attempts to finish the job. The shrapnel fire adjusted and started focusing itself around the bridge.
The men hurriedly trying to set the detonators were relatively shielded by the bridge structure, but it was slaughter on Dani's fleet, as every man or woman on deck was under risk of being ripped into by shrapnel. Dani watched one of her deck girls collapse, shrapnel having ripped her guts open, and was pulled away from the deck by a subordinate. "I apologize, Admiral, but it is too dangerous out here!" the woman cried as the boats' decks were abandoned.
They came to the armored door leading to the bridge, and Dani stepped to the side to allow a girl with a wounded arm to be brought through first.
In doing so, she saved her life.... and doomed the girl.
A sudden blast came from within the compartment of the Liberty, courtesy of an anti-tank round fired from shore. The round hit her depleted magazine, which is another thing that saved Dani's life as the explosion was not enough to tear the boat apart immediately and kill her but merely throw her and anyone else on the deck into the dirty, bloodied water of the Kalunda River.
Dani thrashed about in the water. Her full uniform was too heavy to swim well, and as soon as she caught herself going under her hands went down to her jacket. Bubbles and thrashing water obscured her vision as she, in a near panic, shed the uniform down to the strapless silk bra beneath and the shorts under the trousers. Loosened enough to swim, she forced herself to the surface. Her eyes were stinging from the water, her lungs gasping in the squalid and smoky air so quickly that it hurt.
The remains of the Liberty were around her, debris blasted loose while the bulk of the boat was settling on the bottom of the river. Dani looked about and saw a number of figures in the water. She went to one tan-skinned girl and lifted her out of the water, just to see that her throat and chest had been ripped open by shrapnel and she was already dead.
There was a gurgling sound that came to Dani's attention and she looked over to see, amongst the dead and debris, a figure struggling to grasp a piece of debris. She swam over and lifted the arm up to bring the person to the surface. She recognize the girl as Luminia Tuvaia, a commoner Kalundan girl who, while only being nineteen, was already the mother of two daughters who had lost a father in the earlier battles of the siege. "Don't you die on me," Dani muttered to the girl. "Think of your girls and hang on." She pulled the girl's arm over her shoulders and began to kick toward the bridge. It'd be nearly impossible to get back aboard a boat in this artillery barrage.
She soon realized that Luminia was weakening, and looked down to see the pool of blood around them. Oh God, she's wounded.... "We're almost there," she grunted, seeing the shore not too far away.
Dani took another few kicks and a sudden pain went through her right hip and buttock. She cried out, holding on for dear life, and used her free hand to, for a moment, reach back. She felt her ripped flesh and something metallic, and the thought I just got shot in the ass went through her mind (even if it was more likely shrapnel and not a bullet from the south bank).
With only one leg able to move, Dani began to flounder in the water. The girl's weight was pulling her down and the shore was still so far away....
I'm not going to drown here, God dammit I'm not going to survive all of this fucking crap to MOTHER FUCKING DROWN IN THE GOD DAMNED RIVER!!! "Wake up God dammit! Wake up!"
But it was to no avail. Luminia was still unconscious, and both of their heads began to drip below the murky, bloodied surface of the river...
The ammunition was running out, and still the Stirlins came. Trajan gave the order for those without ammunition to withdraw to the water; remaining they did no good, and he wanted to preserve as many as possible.
With his personal weapons out of ammo, Trajan had no weapon save for his body, and it would have to be enough as the reduced volume of fire allowed the Stirlins to grow ever closer. He noticed they were slacking their attack off; undoubtedly waiting to marshal enough numbers to overwhelm his position in one strong push.
"Cowards!" he bellowed. "I am Trajan, a son of the House of Osis, born a warrior of the Smoke Jaguar Clan! The blood of Franklin Osis runs through my veins! This bridge is mine, and I challenge any of you cowards to come and take it from me!. Or are you no better than the Normans and only brave when you are facing the helpless, you stravag barbarian filth?!" When there was no immediate response, Trajan sneered. "I see you are as cowardly as the Normans are, Stirlins! You are no warriors, and you are unworthy of death at my hand!"
The taunt caught the blood of some of the younger and hotheaded Stirlins, young boys and girls who were ready to prove themselves and end the daily abuses they suffered from their own people. They charged forth, screaming, and it prompted the enemy to attack before he was ready. Again Trajan's people let loose with what ammunition they had left, mowing the enemy down even as his sheer numbers allowed him to get closer and closer.
The sky behind them lit up. Trajan looked back in time to see the dust rising from where the bridge's central span had been successfully detonated. The enemy would no longer be able to threaten a crossing here. "All warriors, fall back!" He waved them backward, everyone firing and retreating as they went.
The Stirlin attack did not relent, even with their chance lost. They could still eliminate his unit, after all, depriving the Kalundans of an elite force necessary for the defense of the north. Trajan was determined to prevent his.
The company fell back, their numbers thinning as men went into the river and swam for the evacuation boats, or even jumped from the ruined spans of the bridge onto boats waiting below. The unit was virtually out of ammunition at this point, but they had fallen back to the entry onto the bridge, with only about fifteen or so feet of width. "Sir, we must withdraw!" One of the Talorans grabbed his arm.
"Go, now! I shall cover the unit's escape!" Trajan stepped forward, knowing that the infantry weapons the Stirlins had could not harm him. They rushed for him, their blood up, each eager for a chance to rip his guts out. He could smell their rage in the air, could feel his heart race and the blood of his body flow through him with warmth. A smile crossed his face as he raised his left hand in preparation for the leading Stirlin, an officer of some form. The snarling, long-haired brute was shooting at him, bullets bouncing off his armor, all the way until Trajan's left arm shot forward and his armored left hand gripped the Stirlin by his neck. Trajan squeezed and the Stirlin's spine shattered in his grip. His right hand ripped the sword off the Stirlin's belt and he tossed the dead man to the side.
Another gaggle of Stirlins was next, and they fell to one swipe of Trajan's blade, his strength forcing the steel clear through their necks. They all fell headless before him. Roaring with battlelust to meet the Stirlins' own, Trajan swiped the weapon again and removed the heads of another line of enemies. Their own bloodrage subsided enough that they slowed down a bit, their officers (or what passed for them) trying to get control of their men before they got themselves slaughtered.
The Stirlins were going to bring up anti-armor weapons, Trajan knew, so he took it upon himself to buy his men a bit more time, and make himself a slightly harder target, by attacking. He roared again and dove into their ranks, the men behind them using up the last of their ammunition to prevent any attempts to outflank Trajan until they, too, joined the others getting into the water and onto the boats.
The attention of the Stirlins was entirely upon Trajan at that point. In their midst, he took on an otherworldly aura as the sword he had claimed from their dead cleaved through them, men dying even from the strong blows of his free hand crushing their skulls. With that hand he claimed a warhammer from another Stirlin, both arms flying about and Stirlins dying under them while the mass of troops desperately tried to shoot him with rounds that could not get through the armor on his body.
Soon the Stirlins began to actually retreat, as their officers had desired, but more from the terror that struck their ranks as they saw the battle-armored behemoth scything through them. He was no longer Human, but a Demon....
From a boat off the shore, Ro'takh watched while his men secured the battle armor troops. He could scarcely believe his eyes at the sight, as Trajan scythed through the enemy, a man against an army, and forced them to retreat. His poetic heart rejoiced in what seemed to be the perfect outcome to the Klingon epic that Trajan's life had been.
One of the militiamen looked to Ro'takh from the bow of the little fishing ship he had appropriated to help with the evacuation of the southern bank. "Sir, all are aboard! We must go!"
Ro'takh cupped his hands and shouted, "Trajan! Come, friend!"
He knew it wouldn't matter, that Trajan wouldn't hear him, not just over the whistle of artillery or the roar of battle, but in the roar of Trajan's own heart.
The crimes of the Stirlins were manifold. The murdered villages, the raped children, the slaughtered innocent. Trajan knew that they were in some ways even more evil than the Normans were.
He thought of Juliana. Her pleasant, happy smile. Her soft hands.
He thought of what had been done to her that night. Her tears, her screams, as Tarl Ikmen and his entourage had raped her so viciously, following the Gorean customs of the Norman people.
He thought of the horrors the Stirlins would have visited upon her given the chance.
And he revelled in being able to slaughter them like this.
Trajan had finally been granted the chance to fulfill Franklin Osis' purpose for him, made so long ago. He was a warrior of the Smoke Jaguar Clan, of Osis' own blood, charged with protecting the weak from the strong. He had been given the honor of carrying it out, of protecting the innocent people in Kalunda from the raping, slaughtering hordes of Ar and the Stirlin.
There was the slightest sound in his ear, and Trajan turned away from the slaughter in time to see Ro'takh aboard a vessel, calling out to him. His men had escaped, it was time to go.
He turned and saw the Stirlin anti-tank RPG coming up. A weapon that could shatter Ro'takh's vessel with ease.
He knew what he had to do.
Charging forward, Trajan howled in rage and charged the Stirlin woman with the RPG launcher. She snarled at him and lifted it at him. He brought his warhammer down and shattered her skull, splattering her brains.
Her finger tensed.
In death, she pulled the trigger on the launcher.
The RPG slammed into his chest and exploded, blowing apart the woman's body. The armor blew away under the impact, exposing Trajan's chest. The explosion ripped through his body and threw him backward, shards of his armor being pressed through the incinerated flesh. Pain shot through, hot pain like he'd never felt before.
Feet pressed down on him. He felt blades press into the unarmored flesh, cutting him and striking his stomach. He felt the steel cut through his guts and roared in agony. His left fist clenched and his warhammer went up, bashing the brains out of a Stirlin standing over him.
But there were too many.
A roar of gunfire filled the air and men cleared from around Trajan. He forced himself up, ignoring the pain in his belly. He dropped the warhammer and put his left hand over his wounds, keeping his intestines from coming out. Bleeding heavily, he forced himself to the shore and waded into the river, coming up to his neck until he arrived at the fishing boat Ro'takh commanded. Ro'takh's militamen kept up their fire, spraying the shore with bullets and preventing the Stirlins from attacking again.
Straining with every muscle, Trajan roared and used both arms to begin pulling himself onto the boat. One, then two, and finally up to five men helped pull him aboard, his weight initially so much that the boat listed hard and he feared it would capsize.
It's motor roared to life and it pulled away from the shore just as artillery from one of the few remaining gunboats ripped through the Norman formation. Trajan was brought to the main deck, where Ro'takh kneeled over him. "Trajan! Trajan, my friend..."
Every word was pain as Trajan spoke. "I... did my warriors.... get clear?"
"They did, friend." Ro'takh looked down at Trajan's massive chest and all of the blood and gore there, the incineration from the RPG joined by the strong stabs of the Stirlins.
"I..." Trajan coughed and blood came from his mouth. "Juliana...."
"She will be taken care of, Trajan. One way or the other, she will be taken care of." Ro'takh clasped hands with the fallen warrior. "Trajan, you saved our lives and those of your men. The entire city, in fact, has been saved due to you."
"I... have finally... succeeded....in something..." Trajan grinned bitterly, coughing up more blood.. "I... I am going to die.... friend... Please.... go to Lootera... Huntress... my sibkin.... go to Tristan, the warrior who.... trained me.... let them know how I died.... let them know what I have done.... honorable or not.... They deserve that... much..."
"I will do that, dear friend." Ro'takh nodded to him, drawing close so that Trajan could hear him in his final moments. "I will tell all of what you have done. I will tell the Princess itl dhin Intuit that you have fulfilled your oath to her to your last breath, and I will tell all of your story. My friend, Klingons will sing your name for the next thousand years."
Trajan smiled at that, but his reply was lost in a cough of blood.
"Go to Sto'Vo'Kor, Trajan, and join your ancestors. I look forward to seeing you again at it's gates...."
Trajan nodded weakly at that. His head fell back, his chest stilled, and he was dead.
Ro'takh looked down at the stilled body of the warrior he had so recently befriended for several long seconds, even as the roars of battle echoed around them still, the Stirlins shelling the boats as they left the area.
Then his head shot up, and looking up at the smoke-filled sky, a roar came from Ro'takh's lungs, the death howl of tradition to mourn the passing of another.
Dani's body was pulled from the river by a passing boat and forced aboard by the men of the Abigail Adams, one of her newest and few surviving gunboats. She was laid out on the deck, her lips turning blue, her eyes shut. "She's not breathing!" one of the men shouted, leaning over her. Having been trained in CPR, as all river personnel, he began to thrust down on her stomach, while another man ran over and leaned over her head. At the signal he breathed into her mouth.
From the bridge, the ship confirmed they'd found her, and informed King Julio that she wasn't breathing.
"C'mon, get up Admiral...." another man muttered as those without duties watched their crewmates try desperately to revive her. Another round of chest presses and breaths went by and nothing happened. They started another....
Nothing happened.
Last edited by Steve on 2007-04-16 03:34am, edited 3 times in total.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
DAY 50/51.
Kalunda
“Ah, I'm not sure how to say this, Ilavna..” Sarina began delicately, and the Taloran woman, staring in rapt attention at the screen with the Stirlin Brigadier in the background making herself scarce, gave a slight shudder.
“Just say it plainly... Something has happened to Danielle, has it not?”
Sarina paused for a moment, to remind herself that she was dealing with a psion, and an excellent reader of emotions, and nodded gently. “She's dead, Ilavna. There's nothing else to be done about it. She drowned in the river rescuing one of the crewers on her flagship, during the evacuation of the Old Bridge force. Ah, the clan retainer of the Marshal's, Trajan, was also killed in action..”
Ilavna quailed at that and flung her head away, eyes watery though as always with Talorans no other sign of crying was possible. “The Lord of Justice has given a punishment to my liege, which will take me many years to understand.” A convulsive shudder ran through her body.
“Well, we fought for your city on account of that woman, and her honour brought her to die here as well, and her love. I am certain that the Lord of Justice will be merciful to her soul; and that of Trajan's, will be received in the finest fashion by the Sword. That this has happened today...”
“I know.” Sarina was utterly morose. “We've received a communication from the fleet above. As it happens, the Duchess of Medina is reporting a tremendous victory. She has completely routed the enemy and compelled the surrender of three divisions. There's no force between her and Kalunda. They'll be here in four days. I can't believe we've lost her on this day... And I know that without her the city would have fallen, Jhayka wouldn't have stayed, when the war finally came. We will try to make her at home for that....”
“There's nothing you can do,” Ilavna responded, despondent. She could only imagine her liege-lady once again the morose, neurotic, fragile creature that had started this journey, thoroughly broken. Or worse—can anyone survive this twice? “Let me go and tell her. And leave us absolutely alone. Under all circumstances.”
“Understood,” Sarina replied. She was busy enough as it was... Now that the evacuations had succeeded combat had for the moment ceased, but they had to shift troops and prepare for the possibility of assaults to come against the north bank city.
The channel was closed, and Ilavna glanced to the Stirlin brigadier. “Mourn for her, also; she is your life.” With that curt comment she left the prisoner alone and went for the room in which the Taloran medical equipment had been set up to aid Jhayka's healing.
The Taloran Princess was sleeping still. Ilavna waited many standard hours for her to awaken from her sleep, until it was certainly quite close to midnight. When she did it was a slow and fitful then, though it was clear now that she had more strength than she had earlier in the day. Under the latest and most expensive portable equipment that money could be buy, as had been available on the General Faeria, she was recovering rapidly.
Those dead-fish eyes looked over curiously at the graveness of Ilavna's expression when she finally mustered words to speak. “Did they take the bridges before my warning, my dear Ilavna?”
“No. The warning was heard. It was obeyed. The bridges were destroyed or swung out of position. The enemy did not get across. Almost all of the troops in the bridgehead positions were rescued.”
“Good. What is amiss, then? Surely the Duchess of Medina has not been repulsed...”
“She has won a signal victory, I am told, over the defenders on the heights above East Port.”
“Dani.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
A fragile arm trembled and pushed aside the covers, pointing to Ilavna. “How badly?”
“She's dead, Your Highness. She perished rescuing the life of one of the sailors from her gunboat when it was sunk beneath her feet as they went to evacuate...”
The explosion was sudden, incredible, and vicious, an explosion of black and bitter rage, years and years in the coming, and dangerously unlike the reaction that Ilavna had expected. “HAS MY SIN DOOMED EVERYONE I LOVE? BUT HOW COULD I LOVE THEM WITHOUT THEM? BY GOD, SURELY I AM DAMNED!”
Ilavna's eyes were watering again, her ears tilted back, embarrassed, ashamed, as the princess shifted to her side and lay shuddering there. “Please, Your Highness, there is life beyond this. There is forgiveness.”
“I killed her. My orders killed her.” She tried to spit, but her throat was too dry, and so she just continued her bitter words. “A fitting tribute to pride and lust. I killed her!”
Ilavna inhaled sharply. She had feared her mistress would commit suicide. Now it seemed that, instead, the Lord of Justice was finally and most dramatically touching her toward a grim recognition of her own sin.
“It was my lust who kept her here, and my pride in my own rightness that sent her forth... I am a damned sinner through and through,” Jhayka continued rambling.
“Your Highness, my liege. There is penance... And with it, surety of the Lord Justice's mercy not only for you but for poor Danielle's soul. She, at least, died innocently and courageously in the heat of battle, saving the life of another. That is an accomplishment worthy of any in the hosts of Valera, where you may yet be reunited in due time....”
“Penance, penance.. Yes, yes, penance...” Jhayka trailed off, and for a few long minutes there was total silence.
Then there was a loud rap on the door. Ilavna delicately rose to go to it, trusting that surely Jhayka could not do anything to herself in a short period of time. She opened the door to find someone there whom she had not expected at all; in fact, whom she had expected to be in mourning. Amber d'Kellius.
But before the woman could speak, there was a cut-off wail of agony from the medical table where Jhayka lay and a squeal of warning alarms coming on a split second too late with more being added. The two turned in horror, and Ilavna saw Jhayka having ripped her IV's and blood-cleaning and nanite insertion lines out. And holding them clenched in her strong right fist, striking and plunging with them again and again into her face and eyes, with the incredible pain resistance her long service, and before it, harsh childhood, had brutally gifted to her.
Ilavna rushed to her side, and was met, as the grip on the needles was abandoned, with a disturbingly cool comment from Jhayka:
“There was the temporal penance, confessor. Give me the spiritual.”
The sinner had recognized her own sins; and as thoroughly as the human Oedipus had scourged himself, so had she.
Kalunda
“Ah, I'm not sure how to say this, Ilavna..” Sarina began delicately, and the Taloran woman, staring in rapt attention at the screen with the Stirlin Brigadier in the background making herself scarce, gave a slight shudder.
“Just say it plainly... Something has happened to Danielle, has it not?”
Sarina paused for a moment, to remind herself that she was dealing with a psion, and an excellent reader of emotions, and nodded gently. “She's dead, Ilavna. There's nothing else to be done about it. She drowned in the river rescuing one of the crewers on her flagship, during the evacuation of the Old Bridge force. Ah, the clan retainer of the Marshal's, Trajan, was also killed in action..”
Ilavna quailed at that and flung her head away, eyes watery though as always with Talorans no other sign of crying was possible. “The Lord of Justice has given a punishment to my liege, which will take me many years to understand.” A convulsive shudder ran through her body.
“Well, we fought for your city on account of that woman, and her honour brought her to die here as well, and her love. I am certain that the Lord of Justice will be merciful to her soul; and that of Trajan's, will be received in the finest fashion by the Sword. That this has happened today...”
“I know.” Sarina was utterly morose. “We've received a communication from the fleet above. As it happens, the Duchess of Medina is reporting a tremendous victory. She has completely routed the enemy and compelled the surrender of three divisions. There's no force between her and Kalunda. They'll be here in four days. I can't believe we've lost her on this day... And I know that without her the city would have fallen, Jhayka wouldn't have stayed, when the war finally came. We will try to make her at home for that....”
“There's nothing you can do,” Ilavna responded, despondent. She could only imagine her liege-lady once again the morose, neurotic, fragile creature that had started this journey, thoroughly broken. Or worse—can anyone survive this twice? “Let me go and tell her. And leave us absolutely alone. Under all circumstances.”
“Understood,” Sarina replied. She was busy enough as it was... Now that the evacuations had succeeded combat had for the moment ceased, but they had to shift troops and prepare for the possibility of assaults to come against the north bank city.
The channel was closed, and Ilavna glanced to the Stirlin brigadier. “Mourn for her, also; she is your life.” With that curt comment she left the prisoner alone and went for the room in which the Taloran medical equipment had been set up to aid Jhayka's healing.
The Taloran Princess was sleeping still. Ilavna waited many standard hours for her to awaken from her sleep, until it was certainly quite close to midnight. When she did it was a slow and fitful then, though it was clear now that she had more strength than she had earlier in the day. Under the latest and most expensive portable equipment that money could be buy, as had been available on the General Faeria, she was recovering rapidly.
Those dead-fish eyes looked over curiously at the graveness of Ilavna's expression when she finally mustered words to speak. “Did they take the bridges before my warning, my dear Ilavna?”
“No. The warning was heard. It was obeyed. The bridges were destroyed or swung out of position. The enemy did not get across. Almost all of the troops in the bridgehead positions were rescued.”
“Good. What is amiss, then? Surely the Duchess of Medina has not been repulsed...”
“She has won a signal victory, I am told, over the defenders on the heights above East Port.”
“Dani.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
A fragile arm trembled and pushed aside the covers, pointing to Ilavna. “How badly?”
“She's dead, Your Highness. She perished rescuing the life of one of the sailors from her gunboat when it was sunk beneath her feet as they went to evacuate...”
The explosion was sudden, incredible, and vicious, an explosion of black and bitter rage, years and years in the coming, and dangerously unlike the reaction that Ilavna had expected. “HAS MY SIN DOOMED EVERYONE I LOVE? BUT HOW COULD I LOVE THEM WITHOUT THEM? BY GOD, SURELY I AM DAMNED!”
Ilavna's eyes were watering again, her ears tilted back, embarrassed, ashamed, as the princess shifted to her side and lay shuddering there. “Please, Your Highness, there is life beyond this. There is forgiveness.”
“I killed her. My orders killed her.” She tried to spit, but her throat was too dry, and so she just continued her bitter words. “A fitting tribute to pride and lust. I killed her!”
Ilavna inhaled sharply. She had feared her mistress would commit suicide. Now it seemed that, instead, the Lord of Justice was finally and most dramatically touching her toward a grim recognition of her own sin.
“It was my lust who kept her here, and my pride in my own rightness that sent her forth... I am a damned sinner through and through,” Jhayka continued rambling.
“Your Highness, my liege. There is penance... And with it, surety of the Lord Justice's mercy not only for you but for poor Danielle's soul. She, at least, died innocently and courageously in the heat of battle, saving the life of another. That is an accomplishment worthy of any in the hosts of Valera, where you may yet be reunited in due time....”
“Penance, penance.. Yes, yes, penance...” Jhayka trailed off, and for a few long minutes there was total silence.
Then there was a loud rap on the door. Ilavna delicately rose to go to it, trusting that surely Jhayka could not do anything to herself in a short period of time. She opened the door to find someone there whom she had not expected at all; in fact, whom she had expected to be in mourning. Amber d'Kellius.
But before the woman could speak, there was a cut-off wail of agony from the medical table where Jhayka lay and a squeal of warning alarms coming on a split second too late with more being added. The two turned in horror, and Ilavna saw Jhayka having ripped her IV's and blood-cleaning and nanite insertion lines out. And holding them clenched in her strong right fist, striking and plunging with them again and again into her face and eyes, with the incredible pain resistance her long service, and before it, harsh childhood, had brutally gifted to her.
Ilavna rushed to her side, and was met, as the grip on the needles was abandoned, with a disturbingly cool comment from Jhayka:
“There was the temporal penance, confessor. Give me the spiritual.”
The sinner had recognized her own sins; and as thoroughly as the human Oedipus had scourged himself, so had she.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Kalunda, Gilead
DAY 51
The image of Jhayka's bloodied eye sockets was still haunting Amber while she laid upon her bed in her underwear, the BDU of a Crimson Guard infantrywoman laid out on a nearby table to put in when it came time to head back up.
Sarina was on the bed beside her, having cried herself to sleep over the course of the night. Her lover, the Baroness Joanna d'Tumia, had died fighting on the northern bank in a skirmish that would now likely fade into obscurity due to Trajan's stand at the bridge and the evacuation from the southern bank. Amber dared not touch her little sister for fear of awaking her, as she figured Sarina needed all the rest she could get.
She thought back to what had happened, when she had been treated to the sight of the Princess Jhayka's reaction to word of Dani's death on the river; she had taken out her IVs and thrust the needles into her eyes like some kind of madwoman, a horrifying sight that Amber would probably take to the grave with her. It struck her as an act of insane grief, a self-mutilation she'd never quite understand.
This was made all the more horrible by the fact that Dani was alive.
The word had come in just after Illavna had left to inform Jhayka. Medics had succeeded in clearing the water from her lungs and saving her before she could die. There was no word on her condition yet, of course, but armed with this news Amber had run off as fast as she could to bring the good news to Illavna and Jhayka, just in time to see Jhayka blind herself in fit of fury. At that point nothing else could be said, not at the moment, and Amber had left the room and only informed Illavna after she emerged, Jhayka asleep again.
There was a gentle knock at the door. Amber pulled a silken robe over herself and tied it at the waist. She went to the door and found Illavna there, looking deceptively serene and full of contemplation. Amber slipped out into the hall and gently closed the door behind her. "I'm sorry I can't invite you in. My sister, she has lost her lover to the skirmishing on the north bank."
"It's not good news, anyway, Amber," Ilavna replied simply. "Please brace yourself for this... But the medics from the fleet who evacuated Danielle before moving her up to the Alliance hospital ship.... Had a very poor take on her condition." Now that the Cartagenean Corps had been smashed, and with the local AD essentially destroyed, it was becoming possible for regular shipments and emergency medical evacuations to reach the city with relative impunity, especially with their enemies concentrating all their assets to defend the evacuation of their forces on the south bank over to the north bank. "Are you prepared to hear..?" Ilavna asked, gently, and offered her arms to Amber to hold the human woman. It was clear that despite her serenity and calmness the news she was going to tell would not be good.
Amber felt a chill at Illavna's words, a growing dread as she could tell the young priestess was trying to soften what would be a very hard blow.
"She's in a vegetative state, Amber," Ilavna explained very gently. "There's essentially no brain functions whatsoever. She's being kept alive entirely by machines. There's some hope that the finest medical treatment in the multiverse... May aide in a recovery. But it's been almost twenty-four hours since she was wounded and the prognosis for it.. Is very bad. They're going to be immediately doing a series of micro-surgeries using programmed nanites, and constructing artificial pathways in the brain, attempting information recovery and transfer from dying cells... Replace half the nervous system. A lot of the basic brain stem functions may be replicated by machines.. But it's an even guess as to if Danielle, the person, ever recovers." Ilavna shuddered, her ears flexed down. "I'm praying for her. But she'll need someone to care for her, for years if she is fortune.. And forever if she is not. Jhayka cannot do it. She's... Their relationship was doomed from the start. Alien and human, noble and commoner. It was her last sin, and she suffered for it the most in her heart. I imagine she feels nothing but remorse for it.. But also for Danielle. Jhayka will provide the money..." Ilavna focused. "But I'm asking you now, to be strong, to survive, and to make sure that she is taken care of until her dying day by a living person, in addition to a trust fund. Promise me this, Amber? Be strong and true to what you've tried to make yourself."
Amber slumped against the wall, her right hand covering her face as she digested the news. "How could this happen? To her of all people?"
And how could it? Amber remembered Dani as being so full of life, humorous and witty, passionate and devoted. That's why she'd fallen so hard for her, why it'd hurt so much when she found out that Dani and Jhayka had fallen in love.
Now that would be gone. Some might yet be salvaged, but the energetic swimmer that had once frolicked with Amber in the warm waters of the Kalunda River was gone, lost to those same waters. The Dani Verdes that Amber wanted would be gone, replaced with some kind of woman-machine. How much of her would still be real? How much would be machinery?
Illavna said that Jhayka and Danielle could not be together. Amber was not so sure. Was the social and racial distinction enough to keep two people apart? As much as Amber might benefit from it, what good would being close to Dani be if Dani spent her time pining for Jhayka?
"She tried to save a life... I almost want to say that she died doing it.." Ilavna offered, quietly. "We may only pray for a miracle. Evil's forces are strong and numerous in the universe, and.. Danielle and Jhayka both had opened themselves up to the influences of the dark powers, even if, in and of themselves, they are the most wonderful and loyal of people. I can't help but feel it... The worst sort of tragedy. But it has come.. And now we must just try to do our best to deal with the aftermath. I have my liege-lady to guide back to the righteous path... And you, you have Danielle to care for, I fear. I beg of you, Amber, to accept that charge... She needs it if she is ever to return in any form to us."
"If none are left to, then yes, I will care for Danielle. But tell me this, Illavna. What 'dark powers' did Jhayka and Danielle open themselves up to? What righteous path is it that you want Jhayka to walk along when she's already been on one, considering I'm not dead or some broken slut-slave to a Norman leader?"
"They shouldn't have had sex," Ilavna answered flatly, her face flushing a sickly gray-green as though she seemed embarrassed to bring the matter up. "I--By the Lord of Justice I do wish they had been of acceptable emanation toward each other. I would have married them in a heartbeat. But Danielle was born a commoner as I was, and she is not eligible to consort with one so rich in the blood of the Heirs of Valera. And as for Jhayka, she made a choice to abandon the hard path of her ancestors, and the Lord Justice chastised her for it.. It is mercy that she is alive, after this, and after the evils that she allowed to take place before. And she has finally realized that. But, Amber, for Danielle to be caught up in this--it was not her fault. It was Jhayka's. And the penance on what she's done is very clear. She'll live with with the most hideous and artificial sensory receptors in place of her eyes as a public shame of mutilating her own body, so that all may know she did it. And I'm quite convinced... That is exactly what she intended. The rational act of a barbaric but decent individual, driven to punish themselves for their own sins... I will show her the proper atonement in the future. But it is a good sign, for now."
Amber felt a rage swelling up within her, and for the sake of herself, for Illavna, and quite possibly for any future relations with the Talorans, she did her honest best to hold back the tide. "A good sign?! She stabbed her own eyes out because I was a few seconds too late to tell you all that Danielle was alive! And what is this nonsense you speak of., that they deserved this? Jhayka and Danielle love each other, their social ranks be damned. The fact that they made love does not mean they deserved for this to happen, not when you rank it against all the good they've done!"
"I seek the redemption of her soul because I look up to her and see her as a second mother," Ilavna answered delicately, emphasizing the "mother" for its importance in Taloran society. "I desire to see her high in the hosts of Farzbardor, supping with Valera before the eternal and last battle. I desire the same for Danielle. And they both may yet have it. Certainly for Danielle there is absolutely no question.." She smiled rather weakly. "For my liege-lady I fear there is time for her to sin again. But I don't think she will. I desire the best for both of them, Amber, I truly do. But I am a faithful daughter of my faith, and follower of the teachings of the Prophet Eibermon. They could not marry." She turned away, trying to hide the tears slipping into her eyes. "And I do feel horrible for that."
Amber thought she could see conflict there, the girl's faith set against the happiness she wanted for Jhayka. "But.... they are both women and even then of seperate races. It is not as if they could have children and dilute the nobility of Jhayka's blood.... To deny them their love over such a matter is... is horrible!"
"It is the principle of the matter, I suppose," Ilavna answered very quietly. "Poor Danielle lacked the traditions and the hardness of someone raised to the nobility, by birth or by heroism... Though I'd see her ennobled now, if anyone had any righteousness, for she has such a soul. But it doesn't really matter now, does it? They're not even sure that she'll survive.." Her voice broke, and she licked her lips and swallowed hard. "We may only see the future unfold."
"I will speak to King Julio on the matter. If your people will not grant her such, our's certainly will. She has saved all of our lives, Illavna, with her gunboat fleet. She designed those ships, built them, crewed them, and led them to victories that saved Kalunda."
Still reeling from the news, Amber choked back a sob and continued, "And what if she ever recovers? What can be done for her and Jhayka then?"
"I don't know," Ilavna answered, hesitatingly... "I really don't know enough about the customs and regulations of the nobility in such matters to even hazard a guess, and..." She took a breath and looked back, grim, to Amber. "Please, don't hurt yourself by thinking she will recover. I couldn't help it. I looked into their minds. All of the medics were thinking they had a 'vegetable' on their hands. I hated them for their cruelty to her. But I fear it is right; and I can't hold it against those who must deal with so much death, anyway."
Amber slumped against the wall, overcome with emotion. The small part of her that had wished for something to happen, for Dani to yet be her's, was distraught at hearing all of this. "If it's true... if she is gone.... then they should simply let her die, it's not fair to leave her stuck as a vegetable." She clenched a fist and unclenched it. "Today has been a bad day for my family. My sister grieves for Joanna and now I am left to grieve for Dani, and to hope that Jhayka's mind is not lost. We're so close to being rescued."
"Don't worry about Jhayka. She'll be fine. I can promise you that. We're.. We're not humans, Amber. We express things in different ways. She hasn't gone insane, I promise you." Ilavna mustered herself for that. "Yes, it has been a very bad day. But the enemy's troops are withdrawing to the north bank, harried across the river with much loss of life, and we're starting to receive supplies again. This was surely their last blow..."
"It was dreadful enough. Kalunda is in ruins, priestess. Our beautiful city has been reduced to rubble by our enemies and the friends who betrayed us." Amber began weeping. "We have always had some wealth, but not enough for this. I have heard it from my sister, seen it in Julio's eyes. Kalunda will be bankrupted long before we can rebuild the shattered buildings and the crushed homes. And help from the outside is not guaranteed. How many people view us as little different from our enemies?" Amber opened her eyes toward Illavna. "There has been so much sacrifice, so many have laid down their lives for Kalunda, but I fear that despite that Kalunda will die from the wounds we have suffered in this war. Strewn into the wind along with the Normans and Stirlin..."
"Jhayka will pay, I'm sure. I couldn't see her not doing it. But don't tell Julio. That's for her to say," Ilavna answered delicately, adding.. "Her Highness.. Has never wanted."
Amber nodded silently at that.
Before she could speak some more, there was a commotion down the hall. A number of officers of the palace came out. One, a pretty young eighteen year old who served as an aide to one of the generals, turned to Amber as she ran passed, so delighted that she was still only in silk bra and dress. "Your Grace, didn't you hear?! It was just announced over the underground comms!"
"What?" Amber looked at the girl increduously as she ran off to join the gaggle. Amber looked to Illavna. "Do you want to see?"
"Let us follow them, certainly," Ilavna was glad for the distraction.
It was a short trip to the stairs that led to the surface, and with the cessation of bombings and shellings access was much easier. Amber and Illavna found themselves among a group of on-lookers who were looking skyward. At first Amber thought it was due to the jets flying overhead, as she heard the roar of their engines above, but soon she realized it was something else entirely.
The shapes in the sky were growing larger, large chests with a torch of four-colored flame emblazoned upon them and parachutes deploying as they drew near the ground. They landed with strong thunks, people rushing to get out of the way of the objects, while even more could be seen in the orange sky of sunset.
Amber watched one chest opened, and another, and people picking out what looked to be food rations, water gallons, and such. Despite not being in uniform, she took command of the situation. "Hold it there! Everyone take them to the palace grounds, we'll organize them and put them into our storage bunkers from there!"
The crowd responded to the orders and Amber looked to Illavna. "I guess it won't be long now, will it?"
"No. No it won't. Take care of yourself, Amber. You must live, to make sure that Danielle does also, whatever comes to her..." Ilavna offered, gently, and then added: "Do not worry about Her Highness, truly. I will see to her safety and health."
General Faeria, Near East Port
Fay was at her place in Arshon's Headquarters, continuing the cohesion of the combined forces under Arshon and Berglund while Erik Berglund was away at the front with his troops. Here, Arshon directed what was left of their forces in the mopping up operation and securing of East Port, allowing the Duchess of Medina to continue the advance on Kalunda, where Dani waited for rescue.
To think she stayed here for me, she gave up everything for me.... Fay shook her head. She felt guilty that she'd been the one to insist on coming to Gilead and to insist on Palm City. It had seemed like a nice place, after all. But instead, they had both suffered for it.
Fay's attention turned back to the briefing. Her purpose was primarily matters related to her engineering specialty, so her place in strategy and other issues was minor, but still desired at times. She kept paying attention to the conversation, fidgeting once and a while in her seat and the Berglund militia uniform she was wearing.
One of the operators in the room turned in his chair. "General, we have a message from orbit, one of the hospital ships."
"Really? Why?"
"They want to give a message to Miss al-Bakar, Sir."
Fay looked bewildered at that, but responded when Arshon nodded to her as instruction to see what the call was about. She brought the earpiece and mic up to her face and stated her name, waiting for the report.
To observors, it was as if she were suddenly possessed. It took only a few moments for the man on the other end to inform her that Danielle was nearly brain-dead, a comatose vegetable from near-drowning. Fay's voice was weak and dry when she thanked the person on the other end for telling her. All eyes turned toward her, and someone she couldn't even remember the name of at the moment asked her, "Is everything okay?"
"Dani's gone," she muttered. "Gone. Gone gone gone. She's gone."
"What happened?", asked Arshon.
"Brain-dead vegetable. Dani is gone. She's gone." Fay slumped down and sat on the floor of the train. "I killed her. I.... I brought her here, I didn't listen." Seeing their expressions, Fayza suddenly exploded with rage and screamed, "I KILLED HER?! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?! I KILLED HER!"
The others were too taken aback by the sudden outburst and didn't react at first as Fayza forced herself to her feet. "I killed my friend, oh God forgive me, how could I do it?! I'm such a stupid slut!"
Arshon took a step away from everything, giving a curt nod to the Berglundian Brigadier who was serving as her second to take things over, and put a hand on Fay's shoulder. Reassuring, or trying to be, without speaking.
"Don't you understand?! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?!?!?!?! I wanted to be fucked! I wanted to be fucked and fucked and fucked and get laid and be a fucking slut and now Dani's gone and it's ALL MY FUCKING FAULT! I WANT TO DIE! OH GOD I WANT TO DIE!" Fay's crazed outburst ended as she slumped over on the floor, tears of madness and grief streaming down her face. "I want to die oh God please let me die I killed Dani I'm such a slut...."
Arshon--Priscilla Laurentii--grabbed the woman and hefted her up, ignoring her sobbing for the moment. "We're in a protected position. Carry on. It's clear that commander al-Bakar.. Is finally and unfortunately suffering the effects of her captivity." The other mercenary nodded crisply, and Priscilla helped and prodded Fayza back into the next car, where Jhayka's private suite retained a battered sense of elegance after two months without its owner, dirty and disarrayed and bloodstains in a few places, but still plenty fancy. "Do you know what I did, Fayza? You're not alone. I've done far worse things than get a friend brain-damaged..." The Devenshirite woman turned and reached for Jhayka's wine cabinet, eyes intently on Fayza.
"She didn't want to come. She wanted to go to Lisea. She didn't want to come here," Fayza sobbed, ignoring the presence of wine. "I insisted. I wanted to come here because here people are looser and I knew I'd get laid and I.... how could I? If only I'd listened to her..."
Prscilla presented her with a bottle. "Get yourself drunk. We've both got plenty of dead to forget. Or remember. Maybe both." She uncorked the bottle of port and handed it over negligently. Priscilla Laurentii had suffered getting the ability to care burned out of her, with her last decision to try and do so, and its bloody aftermath. Now she was just the image of practicality in calming Fay down and getting back to work.
At first Fay looked at it without saying anything. "It... it looks like the stuff I was given the night I was...." The memory flashed through her head. Dani had gone off with another man, leaving her to be approached by an innocent-looking guy with a bottle of port and time. They had drank their fill, flirted a little, returned to his room for a one night stand...
...and she had woken up with a slave collar and chains.
"Oh God, I brought all this upon both of us." Fay had been trying hard these past couple of months to suppress the horrible memories of what had been done to her in her weeks of captivity. But it flooded back now, the humiliation of being strung up like a piece of meat, the pain of the rapings at the hands of Oloparatho and his Norman clients, the neuro-agonizer punishments whenever she didn't do exactly as desired, the bizarre and perverted sexual tortures she had endured in Illian Berglund's hands...
Fay's mind broke under the stress. She began weeping pitifully, mumbling incoherent thoughts to herself as she relived her ordeal all at once. Her hand went up and knocked the bottle away, spilling it's contents out onto the rug.
There was nothing left to be done, and her duty required Priscilla to resume her command. She left the broken woman in the room, non-chalantly making the call for some medical personnel to come and attend to her, sedate her, anything to get her to rest.
DAY 51
The image of Jhayka's bloodied eye sockets was still haunting Amber while she laid upon her bed in her underwear, the BDU of a Crimson Guard infantrywoman laid out on a nearby table to put in when it came time to head back up.
Sarina was on the bed beside her, having cried herself to sleep over the course of the night. Her lover, the Baroness Joanna d'Tumia, had died fighting on the northern bank in a skirmish that would now likely fade into obscurity due to Trajan's stand at the bridge and the evacuation from the southern bank. Amber dared not touch her little sister for fear of awaking her, as she figured Sarina needed all the rest she could get.
She thought back to what had happened, when she had been treated to the sight of the Princess Jhayka's reaction to word of Dani's death on the river; she had taken out her IVs and thrust the needles into her eyes like some kind of madwoman, a horrifying sight that Amber would probably take to the grave with her. It struck her as an act of insane grief, a self-mutilation she'd never quite understand.
This was made all the more horrible by the fact that Dani was alive.
The word had come in just after Illavna had left to inform Jhayka. Medics had succeeded in clearing the water from her lungs and saving her before she could die. There was no word on her condition yet, of course, but armed with this news Amber had run off as fast as she could to bring the good news to Illavna and Jhayka, just in time to see Jhayka blind herself in fit of fury. At that point nothing else could be said, not at the moment, and Amber had left the room and only informed Illavna after she emerged, Jhayka asleep again.
There was a gentle knock at the door. Amber pulled a silken robe over herself and tied it at the waist. She went to the door and found Illavna there, looking deceptively serene and full of contemplation. Amber slipped out into the hall and gently closed the door behind her. "I'm sorry I can't invite you in. My sister, she has lost her lover to the skirmishing on the north bank."
"It's not good news, anyway, Amber," Ilavna replied simply. "Please brace yourself for this... But the medics from the fleet who evacuated Danielle before moving her up to the Alliance hospital ship.... Had a very poor take on her condition." Now that the Cartagenean Corps had been smashed, and with the local AD essentially destroyed, it was becoming possible for regular shipments and emergency medical evacuations to reach the city with relative impunity, especially with their enemies concentrating all their assets to defend the evacuation of their forces on the south bank over to the north bank. "Are you prepared to hear..?" Ilavna asked, gently, and offered her arms to Amber to hold the human woman. It was clear that despite her serenity and calmness the news she was going to tell would not be good.
Amber felt a chill at Illavna's words, a growing dread as she could tell the young priestess was trying to soften what would be a very hard blow.
"She's in a vegetative state, Amber," Ilavna explained very gently. "There's essentially no brain functions whatsoever. She's being kept alive entirely by machines. There's some hope that the finest medical treatment in the multiverse... May aide in a recovery. But it's been almost twenty-four hours since she was wounded and the prognosis for it.. Is very bad. They're going to be immediately doing a series of micro-surgeries using programmed nanites, and constructing artificial pathways in the brain, attempting information recovery and transfer from dying cells... Replace half the nervous system. A lot of the basic brain stem functions may be replicated by machines.. But it's an even guess as to if Danielle, the person, ever recovers." Ilavna shuddered, her ears flexed down. "I'm praying for her. But she'll need someone to care for her, for years if she is fortune.. And forever if she is not. Jhayka cannot do it. She's... Their relationship was doomed from the start. Alien and human, noble and commoner. It was her last sin, and she suffered for it the most in her heart. I imagine she feels nothing but remorse for it.. But also for Danielle. Jhayka will provide the money..." Ilavna focused. "But I'm asking you now, to be strong, to survive, and to make sure that she is taken care of until her dying day by a living person, in addition to a trust fund. Promise me this, Amber? Be strong and true to what you've tried to make yourself."
Amber slumped against the wall, her right hand covering her face as she digested the news. "How could this happen? To her of all people?"
And how could it? Amber remembered Dani as being so full of life, humorous and witty, passionate and devoted. That's why she'd fallen so hard for her, why it'd hurt so much when she found out that Dani and Jhayka had fallen in love.
Now that would be gone. Some might yet be salvaged, but the energetic swimmer that had once frolicked with Amber in the warm waters of the Kalunda River was gone, lost to those same waters. The Dani Verdes that Amber wanted would be gone, replaced with some kind of woman-machine. How much of her would still be real? How much would be machinery?
Illavna said that Jhayka and Danielle could not be together. Amber was not so sure. Was the social and racial distinction enough to keep two people apart? As much as Amber might benefit from it, what good would being close to Dani be if Dani spent her time pining for Jhayka?
"She tried to save a life... I almost want to say that she died doing it.." Ilavna offered, quietly. "We may only pray for a miracle. Evil's forces are strong and numerous in the universe, and.. Danielle and Jhayka both had opened themselves up to the influences of the dark powers, even if, in and of themselves, they are the most wonderful and loyal of people. I can't help but feel it... The worst sort of tragedy. But it has come.. And now we must just try to do our best to deal with the aftermath. I have my liege-lady to guide back to the righteous path... And you, you have Danielle to care for, I fear. I beg of you, Amber, to accept that charge... She needs it if she is ever to return in any form to us."
"If none are left to, then yes, I will care for Danielle. But tell me this, Illavna. What 'dark powers' did Jhayka and Danielle open themselves up to? What righteous path is it that you want Jhayka to walk along when she's already been on one, considering I'm not dead or some broken slut-slave to a Norman leader?"
"They shouldn't have had sex," Ilavna answered flatly, her face flushing a sickly gray-green as though she seemed embarrassed to bring the matter up. "I--By the Lord of Justice I do wish they had been of acceptable emanation toward each other. I would have married them in a heartbeat. But Danielle was born a commoner as I was, and she is not eligible to consort with one so rich in the blood of the Heirs of Valera. And as for Jhayka, she made a choice to abandon the hard path of her ancestors, and the Lord Justice chastised her for it.. It is mercy that she is alive, after this, and after the evils that she allowed to take place before. And she has finally realized that. But, Amber, for Danielle to be caught up in this--it was not her fault. It was Jhayka's. And the penance on what she's done is very clear. She'll live with with the most hideous and artificial sensory receptors in place of her eyes as a public shame of mutilating her own body, so that all may know she did it. And I'm quite convinced... That is exactly what she intended. The rational act of a barbaric but decent individual, driven to punish themselves for their own sins... I will show her the proper atonement in the future. But it is a good sign, for now."
Amber felt a rage swelling up within her, and for the sake of herself, for Illavna, and quite possibly for any future relations with the Talorans, she did her honest best to hold back the tide. "A good sign?! She stabbed her own eyes out because I was a few seconds too late to tell you all that Danielle was alive! And what is this nonsense you speak of., that they deserved this? Jhayka and Danielle love each other, their social ranks be damned. The fact that they made love does not mean they deserved for this to happen, not when you rank it against all the good they've done!"
"I seek the redemption of her soul because I look up to her and see her as a second mother," Ilavna answered delicately, emphasizing the "mother" for its importance in Taloran society. "I desire to see her high in the hosts of Farzbardor, supping with Valera before the eternal and last battle. I desire the same for Danielle. And they both may yet have it. Certainly for Danielle there is absolutely no question.." She smiled rather weakly. "For my liege-lady I fear there is time for her to sin again. But I don't think she will. I desire the best for both of them, Amber, I truly do. But I am a faithful daughter of my faith, and follower of the teachings of the Prophet Eibermon. They could not marry." She turned away, trying to hide the tears slipping into her eyes. "And I do feel horrible for that."
Amber thought she could see conflict there, the girl's faith set against the happiness she wanted for Jhayka. "But.... they are both women and even then of seperate races. It is not as if they could have children and dilute the nobility of Jhayka's blood.... To deny them their love over such a matter is... is horrible!"
"It is the principle of the matter, I suppose," Ilavna answered very quietly. "Poor Danielle lacked the traditions and the hardness of someone raised to the nobility, by birth or by heroism... Though I'd see her ennobled now, if anyone had any righteousness, for she has such a soul. But it doesn't really matter now, does it? They're not even sure that she'll survive.." Her voice broke, and she licked her lips and swallowed hard. "We may only see the future unfold."
"I will speak to King Julio on the matter. If your people will not grant her such, our's certainly will. She has saved all of our lives, Illavna, with her gunboat fleet. She designed those ships, built them, crewed them, and led them to victories that saved Kalunda."
Still reeling from the news, Amber choked back a sob and continued, "And what if she ever recovers? What can be done for her and Jhayka then?"
"I don't know," Ilavna answered, hesitatingly... "I really don't know enough about the customs and regulations of the nobility in such matters to even hazard a guess, and..." She took a breath and looked back, grim, to Amber. "Please, don't hurt yourself by thinking she will recover. I couldn't help it. I looked into their minds. All of the medics were thinking they had a 'vegetable' on their hands. I hated them for their cruelty to her. But I fear it is right; and I can't hold it against those who must deal with so much death, anyway."
Amber slumped against the wall, overcome with emotion. The small part of her that had wished for something to happen, for Dani to yet be her's, was distraught at hearing all of this. "If it's true... if she is gone.... then they should simply let her die, it's not fair to leave her stuck as a vegetable." She clenched a fist and unclenched it. "Today has been a bad day for my family. My sister grieves for Joanna and now I am left to grieve for Dani, and to hope that Jhayka's mind is not lost. We're so close to being rescued."
"Don't worry about Jhayka. She'll be fine. I can promise you that. We're.. We're not humans, Amber. We express things in different ways. She hasn't gone insane, I promise you." Ilavna mustered herself for that. "Yes, it has been a very bad day. But the enemy's troops are withdrawing to the north bank, harried across the river with much loss of life, and we're starting to receive supplies again. This was surely their last blow..."
"It was dreadful enough. Kalunda is in ruins, priestess. Our beautiful city has been reduced to rubble by our enemies and the friends who betrayed us." Amber began weeping. "We have always had some wealth, but not enough for this. I have heard it from my sister, seen it in Julio's eyes. Kalunda will be bankrupted long before we can rebuild the shattered buildings and the crushed homes. And help from the outside is not guaranteed. How many people view us as little different from our enemies?" Amber opened her eyes toward Illavna. "There has been so much sacrifice, so many have laid down their lives for Kalunda, but I fear that despite that Kalunda will die from the wounds we have suffered in this war. Strewn into the wind along with the Normans and Stirlin..."
"Jhayka will pay, I'm sure. I couldn't see her not doing it. But don't tell Julio. That's for her to say," Ilavna answered delicately, adding.. "Her Highness.. Has never wanted."
Amber nodded silently at that.
Before she could speak some more, there was a commotion down the hall. A number of officers of the palace came out. One, a pretty young eighteen year old who served as an aide to one of the generals, turned to Amber as she ran passed, so delighted that she was still only in silk bra and dress. "Your Grace, didn't you hear?! It was just announced over the underground comms!"
"What?" Amber looked at the girl increduously as she ran off to join the gaggle. Amber looked to Illavna. "Do you want to see?"
"Let us follow them, certainly," Ilavna was glad for the distraction.
It was a short trip to the stairs that led to the surface, and with the cessation of bombings and shellings access was much easier. Amber and Illavna found themselves among a group of on-lookers who were looking skyward. At first Amber thought it was due to the jets flying overhead, as she heard the roar of their engines above, but soon she realized it was something else entirely.
The shapes in the sky were growing larger, large chests with a torch of four-colored flame emblazoned upon them and parachutes deploying as they drew near the ground. They landed with strong thunks, people rushing to get out of the way of the objects, while even more could be seen in the orange sky of sunset.
Amber watched one chest opened, and another, and people picking out what looked to be food rations, water gallons, and such. Despite not being in uniform, she took command of the situation. "Hold it there! Everyone take them to the palace grounds, we'll organize them and put them into our storage bunkers from there!"
The crowd responded to the orders and Amber looked to Illavna. "I guess it won't be long now, will it?"
"No. No it won't. Take care of yourself, Amber. You must live, to make sure that Danielle does also, whatever comes to her..." Ilavna offered, gently, and then added: "Do not worry about Her Highness, truly. I will see to her safety and health."
General Faeria, Near East Port
Fay was at her place in Arshon's Headquarters, continuing the cohesion of the combined forces under Arshon and Berglund while Erik Berglund was away at the front with his troops. Here, Arshon directed what was left of their forces in the mopping up operation and securing of East Port, allowing the Duchess of Medina to continue the advance on Kalunda, where Dani waited for rescue.
To think she stayed here for me, she gave up everything for me.... Fay shook her head. She felt guilty that she'd been the one to insist on coming to Gilead and to insist on Palm City. It had seemed like a nice place, after all. But instead, they had both suffered for it.
Fay's attention turned back to the briefing. Her purpose was primarily matters related to her engineering specialty, so her place in strategy and other issues was minor, but still desired at times. She kept paying attention to the conversation, fidgeting once and a while in her seat and the Berglund militia uniform she was wearing.
One of the operators in the room turned in his chair. "General, we have a message from orbit, one of the hospital ships."
"Really? Why?"
"They want to give a message to Miss al-Bakar, Sir."
Fay looked bewildered at that, but responded when Arshon nodded to her as instruction to see what the call was about. She brought the earpiece and mic up to her face and stated her name, waiting for the report.
To observors, it was as if she were suddenly possessed. It took only a few moments for the man on the other end to inform her that Danielle was nearly brain-dead, a comatose vegetable from near-drowning. Fay's voice was weak and dry when she thanked the person on the other end for telling her. All eyes turned toward her, and someone she couldn't even remember the name of at the moment asked her, "Is everything okay?"
"Dani's gone," she muttered. "Gone. Gone gone gone. She's gone."
"What happened?", asked Arshon.
"Brain-dead vegetable. Dani is gone. She's gone." Fay slumped down and sat on the floor of the train. "I killed her. I.... I brought her here, I didn't listen." Seeing their expressions, Fayza suddenly exploded with rage and screamed, "I KILLED HER?! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?! I KILLED HER!"
The others were too taken aback by the sudden outburst and didn't react at first as Fayza forced herself to her feet. "I killed my friend, oh God forgive me, how could I do it?! I'm such a stupid slut!"
Arshon took a step away from everything, giving a curt nod to the Berglundian Brigadier who was serving as her second to take things over, and put a hand on Fay's shoulder. Reassuring, or trying to be, without speaking.
"Don't you understand?! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?!?!?!?! I wanted to be fucked! I wanted to be fucked and fucked and fucked and get laid and be a fucking slut and now Dani's gone and it's ALL MY FUCKING FAULT! I WANT TO DIE! OH GOD I WANT TO DIE!" Fay's crazed outburst ended as she slumped over on the floor, tears of madness and grief streaming down her face. "I want to die oh God please let me die I killed Dani I'm such a slut...."
Arshon--Priscilla Laurentii--grabbed the woman and hefted her up, ignoring her sobbing for the moment. "We're in a protected position. Carry on. It's clear that commander al-Bakar.. Is finally and unfortunately suffering the effects of her captivity." The other mercenary nodded crisply, and Priscilla helped and prodded Fayza back into the next car, where Jhayka's private suite retained a battered sense of elegance after two months without its owner, dirty and disarrayed and bloodstains in a few places, but still plenty fancy. "Do you know what I did, Fayza? You're not alone. I've done far worse things than get a friend brain-damaged..." The Devenshirite woman turned and reached for Jhayka's wine cabinet, eyes intently on Fayza.
"She didn't want to come. She wanted to go to Lisea. She didn't want to come here," Fayza sobbed, ignoring the presence of wine. "I insisted. I wanted to come here because here people are looser and I knew I'd get laid and I.... how could I? If only I'd listened to her..."
Prscilla presented her with a bottle. "Get yourself drunk. We've both got plenty of dead to forget. Or remember. Maybe both." She uncorked the bottle of port and handed it over negligently. Priscilla Laurentii had suffered getting the ability to care burned out of her, with her last decision to try and do so, and its bloody aftermath. Now she was just the image of practicality in calming Fay down and getting back to work.
At first Fay looked at it without saying anything. "It... it looks like the stuff I was given the night I was...." The memory flashed through her head. Dani had gone off with another man, leaving her to be approached by an innocent-looking guy with a bottle of port and time. They had drank their fill, flirted a little, returned to his room for a one night stand...
...and she had woken up with a slave collar and chains.
"Oh God, I brought all this upon both of us." Fay had been trying hard these past couple of months to suppress the horrible memories of what had been done to her in her weeks of captivity. But it flooded back now, the humiliation of being strung up like a piece of meat, the pain of the rapings at the hands of Oloparatho and his Norman clients, the neuro-agonizer punishments whenever she didn't do exactly as desired, the bizarre and perverted sexual tortures she had endured in Illian Berglund's hands...
Fay's mind broke under the stress. She began weeping pitifully, mumbling incoherent thoughts to herself as she relived her ordeal all at once. Her hand went up and knocked the bottle away, spilling it's contents out onto the rug.
There was nothing left to be done, and her duty required Priscilla to resume her command. She left the broken woman in the room, non-chalantly making the call for some medical personnel to come and attend to her, sedate her, anything to get her to rest.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
-
The Duchess of Zeon
- Gözde
- Posts: 14566
- Joined: 2002-09-18 01:06am
- Location: Exiled in the Pale of Settlement.
Day 51,
Qinghai Gap.
“There dwelt a man in Babylon....” The soft hymn soothed Catalina Rosario's nerves as she waited for the gamble to come due or otherwise fail, and likely with it now her life. but this is our one chance to salvage something out of the madness, so it must work. She waited patiently, now, expectantly, for the signal to come, otherwise for security troops to come and make short work of her.
Even if the attack on the army headquarters succeeded, however, there was still the prospect of the soldiers resisting her. Unlikely, at best; she was far more popular than Covington could ever be with the rank and file. The risk was still palatable in the extreme as she hunkered down inside one of the cargo cars of a supply train which had arrived, only to disgorge a company-strength force of a Catholic Integralist paramilitary group—Integralismo Grupo de Acción Católico y Nuevo Partido del Estado—or “IGAC y NPE” which she had fallen back upon as a refuge and means of support since the Covington coup.
Gunshots sounded outside as the attack began, the initial sentries and the men unloading the trains having been overwhelmed outright with virtually no fighting. There was a rapid flurry of small arms fire and then silence. Those still inside the train tensed imperceptibly. In a moment there would either be a report of success, or the arrival of an execution squad. Catalina committed her soul to God and waited.
A figure appeared in the dark. Several off the others waiting in the train aimed submachineguns at him. But then they relaxed. The figure wore the dark blue shirt of the IGAC. It was Colonel Francisco Moscardo, the commander of the IGAC force that was with her. He saluted Catalina. “General Rosario.”
“Go ahead.”
“General, we have executed General Roberts for treason against the people, and have secured his headquarters. Come quickly. You must gain control of the army or this mission will be entirely for naught.”
“I'm quite aware, Colonel,” Catalina answered, rising and crossing herself before following Colonel Moscardo at a quick jog toward the centre of the army command headquarters, smoke wafting up from sections of the portable facilities slowly. “How many casualties did you take?”
“Fifteen, four of them dead, only, General.”
“And the losses amongst the defenders?”
“About fourty.”
“Good. Let's hope we don't need to spill any more blood in this bastard civil war—save that of a few deserving men,” she concluded as she stepped inside. The IGAC personnel had already set up the communications equipment to allow for a broadcast on all channels. One armoured and line corps with the support of two understrength second-rate corps, the Quanzhi militias, consisted of the forces that she was contriving to bring around to her side.
There was no time nor interest in waiting. She grabbed the mic which one of the IGAC techs had prepared for her, pausing only to ask a question: “Are we broadcasting spaceward as well?”
“Yes, General Rosario.”
“Good.” She keyed the mic on, speaking in military english instead of the Spanish she had used with Colonel Moscardo.
“Soldiers of the Gilean Armed Forces and Quanzhi Militia Establishment, this is Catalina Rosario, previously known to you as commander of this army, the South Army: I led you in the war, and I was merciful to you of Quanzhi in the settlements of your earlier surrender. You all know now that the destruction of our country is eminent.
“The apparatchik Covington and his cronies have led us into a disastrous alliance with the perverse forces in our own nation, against the desires of the whole civilized world. He sought my assassination, just as he was the true assassin of President and General Marcus de la Hoya! The old General was a good friend of mine, and I mourn his passing dearly. I also know the truth of his last orders. They were not resistance at all cost.
“That is a lie. The last orders of General Marcus de la Hoya to the armed forces and the nation were to work with the international forces to guarantee the security of the whole nation and the destruction of the enclaves of perversion in our society! I will read to you now from General Order No. 1067, which the traitor Covington suppressed out of his madness:
“Quanzhi militia! Your city gains nothing by your continued resistance. Your rights, however, I will guarantee. Fight with me and you will know of yourselves and your people only glory, and honour, and having done just and moral deeds. Stand against us with Covington and the weight of the whole civilized universe will fall upon you!”
She shifted back to military english:
“As for my status, as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces during the legitimate de la Hoya Presidency, I have turned to those politics parties which have maintained continuous resistance to the ideas of the false and traitorous Covington regime, the Nuevo Partido del Estado and the Catholic Agrarian League. On the universal recommendation of their duly established party leadership, as the sole remaining legitimate representatives of the Gilean people, I have been appoined Caudillo and Generalissimo of the Confederacy, and now possess the supreme dictatorial power in legitimate succession.
“Accordingly, using the authority vested in me by the exigencies of circumstance, and the support of the popular parties, I hereby declare General Covington and his whole regime traitors to the Gilean nation and request the assistance of every citizen in the general effort to overthrow him before his madness brings total destruction to our fair Confederacy.
“Under that understanding, the Army of the South marches on Cranstonville at once! Death to Treason! Long Live Gilead and Praise be to Christ King!” Catalina, flush with emotion, turned off the comm, and muttered to Colonel Moscardo:
“Now let's see if the unit commanders will obey our orders.”
Qinghai Gap.
“There dwelt a man in Babylon....” The soft hymn soothed Catalina Rosario's nerves as she waited for the gamble to come due or otherwise fail, and likely with it now her life. but this is our one chance to salvage something out of the madness, so it must work. She waited patiently, now, expectantly, for the signal to come, otherwise for security troops to come and make short work of her.
Even if the attack on the army headquarters succeeded, however, there was still the prospect of the soldiers resisting her. Unlikely, at best; she was far more popular than Covington could ever be with the rank and file. The risk was still palatable in the extreme as she hunkered down inside one of the cargo cars of a supply train which had arrived, only to disgorge a company-strength force of a Catholic Integralist paramilitary group—Integralismo Grupo de Acción Católico y Nuevo Partido del Estado—or “IGAC y NPE” which she had fallen back upon as a refuge and means of support since the Covington coup.
Gunshots sounded outside as the attack began, the initial sentries and the men unloading the trains having been overwhelmed outright with virtually no fighting. There was a rapid flurry of small arms fire and then silence. Those still inside the train tensed imperceptibly. In a moment there would either be a report of success, or the arrival of an execution squad. Catalina committed her soul to God and waited.
A figure appeared in the dark. Several off the others waiting in the train aimed submachineguns at him. But then they relaxed. The figure wore the dark blue shirt of the IGAC. It was Colonel Francisco Moscardo, the commander of the IGAC force that was with her. He saluted Catalina. “General Rosario.”
“Go ahead.”
“General, we have executed General Roberts for treason against the people, and have secured his headquarters. Come quickly. You must gain control of the army or this mission will be entirely for naught.”
“I'm quite aware, Colonel,” Catalina answered, rising and crossing herself before following Colonel Moscardo at a quick jog toward the centre of the army command headquarters, smoke wafting up from sections of the portable facilities slowly. “How many casualties did you take?”
“Fifteen, four of them dead, only, General.”
“And the losses amongst the defenders?”
“About fourty.”
“Good. Let's hope we don't need to spill any more blood in this bastard civil war—save that of a few deserving men,” she concluded as she stepped inside. The IGAC personnel had already set up the communications equipment to allow for a broadcast on all channels. One armoured and line corps with the support of two understrength second-rate corps, the Quanzhi militias, consisted of the forces that she was contriving to bring around to her side.
There was no time nor interest in waiting. She grabbed the mic which one of the IGAC techs had prepared for her, pausing only to ask a question: “Are we broadcasting spaceward as well?”
“Yes, General Rosario.”
“Good.” She keyed the mic on, speaking in military english instead of the Spanish she had used with Colonel Moscardo.
“Soldiers of the Gilean Armed Forces and Quanzhi Militia Establishment, this is Catalina Rosario, previously known to you as commander of this army, the South Army: I led you in the war, and I was merciful to you of Quanzhi in the settlements of your earlier surrender. You all know now that the destruction of our country is eminent.
“The apparatchik Covington and his cronies have led us into a disastrous alliance with the perverse forces in our own nation, against the desires of the whole civilized world. He sought my assassination, just as he was the true assassin of President and General Marcus de la Hoya! The old General was a good friend of mine, and I mourn his passing dearly. I also know the truth of his last orders. They were not resistance at all cost.
“That is a lie. The last orders of General Marcus de la Hoya to the armed forces and the nation were to work with the international forces to guarantee the security of the whole nation and the destruction of the enclaves of perversion in our society! I will read to you now from General Order No. 1067, which the traitor Covington suppressed out of his madness:
Catalina cleared her throat, and continued, striking a bold note, now, in Cantonese she'd hypno-drugged herself into memorizing just for this task:“It is in the paramount interests of the Confederacy's sovereignty to maintain its standing as a civilized country. Therefore all enclaves are immediately disbanded, and central government control is established for the duration of the emergency, with traditional rights of all the peoples nonetheless guaranteed, insomuch as they do not violate natural law.
“In accordance with this directive, all armed forces of the Confederacy are hereby ordered not to engage the designated intervention forces, and to render them all aide, while the interior traitors and rebels must be pursued continuously with the greatest vigor. Only those who throw down their arms or join our cause shall be spared. The future of the nation can only be guaranteed through the most severe of trials and offences against our rights, for the sake of not less than our continued existence as a land and a people.”
“Quanzhi militia! Your city gains nothing by your continued resistance. Your rights, however, I will guarantee. Fight with me and you will know of yourselves and your people only glory, and honour, and having done just and moral deeds. Stand against us with Covington and the weight of the whole civilized universe will fall upon you!”
She shifted back to military english:
“As for my status, as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces during the legitimate de la Hoya Presidency, I have turned to those politics parties which have maintained continuous resistance to the ideas of the false and traitorous Covington regime, the Nuevo Partido del Estado and the Catholic Agrarian League. On the universal recommendation of their duly established party leadership, as the sole remaining legitimate representatives of the Gilean people, I have been appoined Caudillo and Generalissimo of the Confederacy, and now possess the supreme dictatorial power in legitimate succession.
“Accordingly, using the authority vested in me by the exigencies of circumstance, and the support of the popular parties, I hereby declare General Covington and his whole regime traitors to the Gilean nation and request the assistance of every citizen in the general effort to overthrow him before his madness brings total destruction to our fair Confederacy.
“Under that understanding, the Army of the South marches on Cranstonville at once! Death to Treason! Long Live Gilead and Praise be to Christ King!” Catalina, flush with emotion, turned off the comm, and muttered to Colonel Moscardo:
“Now let's see if the unit commanders will obey our orders.”
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Wikipedia's No Original Research policy page.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
-
The Duchess of Zeon
- Gözde
- Posts: 14566
- Joined: 2002-09-18 01:06am
- Location: Exiled in the Pale of Settlement.
DAY 52,
East of Cranstonville
Colonel Wendy Richter was riding in a private compartment on a very high speed, 575kmh regular friction train on 7ft 1/4th inch rails toward the east of the Capitol. Here, where the terrain was broad and flat, incredible speeds could be made, and they'd be needed. It was a fusion powered military train, and it had had to come to a complete stop several times while track repairs were made from constant aerial attacks, and its shields had been tested several times by strafing fighters. Yet it was the only safe way to get to the defending army; the skies were entirely dominated by the international forces, and this courier train was the closest thing to safe which existed. And it wasn't very safe, at that.
She was reviewing the instructions she was delivering personally, given to her from the hands of the President and her former boss in intelligence (she'd been Covington's Chief of Staff before the coup), with which she was to make sure that the Eastern Army did not follow suit and defection as the “Armee de la Sur”, now under the control of General Rosario, had. It was unlikely to begin with, but Covington was worried enough to send his hatchet woman to make sure as his short-lived regime crumbled around him.
Behind her in the capitol, the poor people in the vast slums and shantytowns around Cranstonville were being armed as a People's Militia to meet the Armee de la Sur of the self-proclaimed Caudillo and Generalissimo. The loyal security services and the Republican Guard Corps, ridden with political officers wedded to the old permissive regime (unlike the second-best Capitol Corps, which was thoroughly loyal to the Army, and had gone straight to Catalina's cause without a shot in resistance), could be counted on to try and hold the capitol to the best of their ability against Rosario. If the international forces punched past General Lasaru, however, all efforts would be for naught, and they would all be doomed.
General Lasaru was a Langeist, unusually for them having left their advanced but extremely isolated society (which was much smaller in population than that of the Normans, anyway, only three millions on a tiny peninsula) and joined the military. He was an exceptional enemy of Rosario's in the officer corps, simply out of his deep misogynism, but that made him absolutely reliable to Covington. The problem being, his attitudes and his reputation as a brutal man made him no friend of the rank and file in the Army, either, and that was a critical issue now..
Suddenly the viewscreen in the compartment snappeed on. Wendy looked up in surprise, shocked that it could have activated without her authorization. Then she saw who was on it, and paled. In fact, a cold sweat immediately began. Wendy Richter was very intelligent, and for Rosario to have gone on a live feed with, in the midst of a very busy war, could only have one possible meaning behind it.
“Colonel Richter,” Rosario smiled vaguely, a very dangerous thin on her graying latin features, hardened by so many years of military service. “I want to be polite about this, so I will spare recounting what you already know about yourself.”
Wendy bit her lip, staring at the screen, disbelieving. It's been so long.. “What do you know? Tell me.”
“I know what your real birth name is.”
Wendy Richter collapsed forward, shuddering and taking in a breath. “Alright. Please don't even say it. I don't want to hear it ever again.”
“Fair enough. You poor creature. Especially since what I can release can destroy your biological family... As much as the family that you've fashioned with your husband. Whom I believe is a very notable businessman. Just like your biological father is a rather prominent Protestant minister.. A Calvinist, in fact, now residing in Plymouth, and a political as well as a preacher... Whose reputation would be ruined by this.. Hmm... Failure of morality. Though perhaps you hate him. But does your husband know?”
“No.” She just whispered, and then mustered herself: “Alright. What do you want me to do?”
“General Lasaru has taken exceptional security precautions to prevent his headquarters from being penetrated by officers in support of my policies, Colonel Richter. He cannot force any of those security procedures on yourself, however. My officers will... Make sure that you are given a bomb to place in your package of briefing materials for General Lasaru.”
“I understand. Will it... Be on a timer?”
“You mean am I going to turn you into a suicide bomber?” Rosario countered. “No, Colonel Richter. As I said, you're a poor, pitiful creature. I have no hatred for you. You will leave it there, walk out, and it will go off. Once he is killed we'll let you go. You can find your own way off planet to your husband... I don't care what either of you do after this, really. I'm only after Covington. And the preservation of my nation and the advancement of the Catholic faith.
“But if you try to deviate from your part in this plan, by any sort of warning, by any sort of effort to make the bomb fail... I'll behead you. I'll send assassins to hunt down your husband and kill him. I'll destroy your biological father's reputation and livelihood. And I'll have you buried under the name in your birth register...”
The last one was what did it. With a shudder, the woman nodded rather feebly and rose. “I'll do as your officers instruct me, General Rosario. And.... Thank you for your delicacy on the matter. Covington is doomed and we all know it.”
“The Hand of God works through the most strange and marvelous of creatures,” Catalina answered, and then she cut the connection.
Wendy Richter slumped back down, inconsolate for a while. But she soon enough realized that she had been granted a chance at life itself; and she was not one, who after so much hardship, would abandon that. So she steeled herself to assassinate a man that she hated as much as any other, in probably just a few hours... Even death she could accept, but not the prospect of her memory eternally erased, and replaced only with the memory of the monster she had once been.
With that the price of disobedience, to act as an assassin, and a traitor to her cause and the personal loyalty shown to her commander, were small enough prices to pay. It was better for her to be all those evil things than to be what she had been once before, as a memory of the dead which would last for all time, which was to her far worse than such a title as traitress could ever be.
East of Cranstonville
Colonel Wendy Richter was riding in a private compartment on a very high speed, 575kmh regular friction train on 7ft 1/4th inch rails toward the east of the Capitol. Here, where the terrain was broad and flat, incredible speeds could be made, and they'd be needed. It was a fusion powered military train, and it had had to come to a complete stop several times while track repairs were made from constant aerial attacks, and its shields had been tested several times by strafing fighters. Yet it was the only safe way to get to the defending army; the skies were entirely dominated by the international forces, and this courier train was the closest thing to safe which existed. And it wasn't very safe, at that.
She was reviewing the instructions she was delivering personally, given to her from the hands of the President and her former boss in intelligence (she'd been Covington's Chief of Staff before the coup), with which she was to make sure that the Eastern Army did not follow suit and defection as the “Armee de la Sur”, now under the control of General Rosario, had. It was unlikely to begin with, but Covington was worried enough to send his hatchet woman to make sure as his short-lived regime crumbled around him.
Behind her in the capitol, the poor people in the vast slums and shantytowns around Cranstonville were being armed as a People's Militia to meet the Armee de la Sur of the self-proclaimed Caudillo and Generalissimo. The loyal security services and the Republican Guard Corps, ridden with political officers wedded to the old permissive regime (unlike the second-best Capitol Corps, which was thoroughly loyal to the Army, and had gone straight to Catalina's cause without a shot in resistance), could be counted on to try and hold the capitol to the best of their ability against Rosario. If the international forces punched past General Lasaru, however, all efforts would be for naught, and they would all be doomed.
General Lasaru was a Langeist, unusually for them having left their advanced but extremely isolated society (which was much smaller in population than that of the Normans, anyway, only three millions on a tiny peninsula) and joined the military. He was an exceptional enemy of Rosario's in the officer corps, simply out of his deep misogynism, but that made him absolutely reliable to Covington. The problem being, his attitudes and his reputation as a brutal man made him no friend of the rank and file in the Army, either, and that was a critical issue now..
Suddenly the viewscreen in the compartment snappeed on. Wendy looked up in surprise, shocked that it could have activated without her authorization. Then she saw who was on it, and paled. In fact, a cold sweat immediately began. Wendy Richter was very intelligent, and for Rosario to have gone on a live feed with, in the midst of a very busy war, could only have one possible meaning behind it.
“Colonel Richter,” Rosario smiled vaguely, a very dangerous thin on her graying latin features, hardened by so many years of military service. “I want to be polite about this, so I will spare recounting what you already know about yourself.”
Wendy bit her lip, staring at the screen, disbelieving. It's been so long.. “What do you know? Tell me.”
“I know what your real birth name is.”
Wendy Richter collapsed forward, shuddering and taking in a breath. “Alright. Please don't even say it. I don't want to hear it ever again.”
“Fair enough. You poor creature. Especially since what I can release can destroy your biological family... As much as the family that you've fashioned with your husband. Whom I believe is a very notable businessman. Just like your biological father is a rather prominent Protestant minister.. A Calvinist, in fact, now residing in Plymouth, and a political as well as a preacher... Whose reputation would be ruined by this.. Hmm... Failure of morality. Though perhaps you hate him. But does your husband know?”
“No.” She just whispered, and then mustered herself: “Alright. What do you want me to do?”
“General Lasaru has taken exceptional security precautions to prevent his headquarters from being penetrated by officers in support of my policies, Colonel Richter. He cannot force any of those security procedures on yourself, however. My officers will... Make sure that you are given a bomb to place in your package of briefing materials for General Lasaru.”
“I understand. Will it... Be on a timer?”
“You mean am I going to turn you into a suicide bomber?” Rosario countered. “No, Colonel Richter. As I said, you're a poor, pitiful creature. I have no hatred for you. You will leave it there, walk out, and it will go off. Once he is killed we'll let you go. You can find your own way off planet to your husband... I don't care what either of you do after this, really. I'm only after Covington. And the preservation of my nation and the advancement of the Catholic faith.
“But if you try to deviate from your part in this plan, by any sort of warning, by any sort of effort to make the bomb fail... I'll behead you. I'll send assassins to hunt down your husband and kill him. I'll destroy your biological father's reputation and livelihood. And I'll have you buried under the name in your birth register...”
The last one was what did it. With a shudder, the woman nodded rather feebly and rose. “I'll do as your officers instruct me, General Rosario. And.... Thank you for your delicacy on the matter. Covington is doomed and we all know it.”
“The Hand of God works through the most strange and marvelous of creatures,” Catalina answered, and then she cut the connection.
Wendy Richter slumped back down, inconsolate for a while. But she soon enough realized that she had been granted a chance at life itself; and she was not one, who after so much hardship, would abandon that. So she steeled herself to assassinate a man that she hated as much as any other, in probably just a few hours... Even death she could accept, but not the prospect of her memory eternally erased, and replaced only with the memory of the monster she had once been.
With that the price of disobedience, to act as an assassin, and a traitor to her cause and the personal loyalty shown to her commander, were small enough prices to pay. It was better for her to be all those evil things than to be what she had been once before, as a memory of the dead which would last for all time, which was to her far worse than such a title as traitress could ever be.
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Wikipedia's No Original Research policy page.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
-
The Duchess of Zeon
- Gözde
- Posts: 14566
- Joined: 2002-09-18 01:06am
- Location: Exiled in the Pale of Settlement.
DAY 52,
Karstbodenmark,
On the Kalundan border.
General Abd'ul-Mejid al-Neguib was loyal to the last out of principles to his oath as a Muslim to the al-Farani Emir, even if he thought the man at this point quite mad. Accordingly he had taken over the desperation operations of the past three days to settle what remained of the defending army in a position to hold off the advancing allied forces. To this, he was today aided materially by the arrival of 180,000 Stirlins of their youth and old age cohorts. His own forces had continued to lose heavily, though his rigid control had seized the situation from Covington's political generals in command of the remaining divisions of the Cartagenean Corps, and the fleeing levies.
His last stand was to be made from ambush, in the best place he could make it. Right before the Kalundan border and well less than a day's advance from the city of Kalunda itself was a region of karst land, the “Karst-Earth March” as translated from the German tongue of the locals. The ground here was riddled with massive cave systems and underground rivers where his army could be hidden, where explosive traps were being laid, where the air power of the fleet overhead could not read him, deep in the rocky ground, and where his men could rise up out of it to spread chaos through the ranks of the advancing columns.
It wouldn't be enough. Heavy bombardment from orbit could easily blast apart the caverns. The armour of the advancing international forces would be almost impossible to crack, and they could stand up to the attacks well. But he could hold out for as long as possible, and therefore buy time for his employers to complete the destruction of Kalunda, if it was still in their power to do so.
He had just that evening communicated in detail his plans with President Covington, and the desperate man had signed off on everything. Apparently he had lost contact with General Lasaru, the commander of the Army of the East, and it was uncertain about that Army's loyalty. Cranstonville was on the verge of a mass panic, and there were reports that the Right-Wing Paramilitaries of IGAC y NPE and the Irish Catholic Assault League (ICAL) had come out of hiding and were machinegunning the families of People's Militia leaders before vanishing back into the industrial districts, where the rightist Catholic-Distributivist Unions were giving them aid and hiding them from the authorities, even as armed street clashes between the members of those unions and the action cadres of the Anarcho-Syndicalist International Workers' World (or “Wobblies”, derisively used even by Neguib, who as a good Caliphal subject hated all such ideologies) were reported.
Now it was Neguib's job to make sure that his employers were still willing to do their part. The faces of the Stirlin Warleader Erqui, the Norman Ubar, and the al-Farani Emir appeared before him, all very grave.
“We've completed the evacuation of all but eleven thousand men of a single division,” Erqui began. “They've been left to keep the Kalundan forces pinned on the south bank from maneouvring against us. General Neguib, what are your own plans?”
“I intend to fight a defensive battle beginning tomorrow, when the enemy arrives, gentlemen, which God Willing will hold the relief force off for many days. We will hold in the Karstbodenmark and attack them from every side as they move through it, and force them to stop to deal with us or else see their supply lines slashed and destroyed.”
“Can you hold against their atomics?” An almost-trembling Tarl Ikmen pressed home the question. He had heard Rosario's message to the world, and he knew that their only chance, Covington's plan, was dangerously near total collapse. “You will send our last strong field army, save this one, to its destruction if you cannot.”
“I believe that raids by Stirlin troops I left behind have already crippled their remaining atomic capacity. We attacked several trains carrying nuclear artillery and succeeded, according to the reports of the attackers, in disabling them. We've been trying to tear up as much of the track as possible, but they will certainly repair it if they defeat us and will be able to continue their advance..”
“What do you recommend with Kalunda?” the al-Farani Emir now asked. “How shall we deal with them, Our fine servant?”
“Oh Servant of God, you must certainly attack them tomorrow. Your full army is now in place, Sirs. Attack the city of Kalunda with everything tomorrow, everything you have. You must overrun them tomorrow or I promise that you will never overrun them. They are already receiving supplies from space; they are strengthening again. Tomorrow is your last chance to get your victory. If you do not succeed I can certainly say that the army must be dispersed for guerrilla warfare immediately or all will be lost.”
“They will attack us with atomics as we flee, General Neguib,” Ikmen objected at once. “We must stand to the north of the river.”
“You will not do that if you are wise, General. You cannot hold against them. I have the better part of two modern divisions still able to fight with me, and I know I will not be able to hold them either, even in the Karstbodenmark, just delay them for a few days. If you do not win tomorrow, you must simply disperse your forces into small squads to live in the forests and the mountains and fight a guerrilla war, as you have always planned.”
“But if we do it now,” the Emir objected, “The Sedavanticists will be able to capture all our women and children, and the damned Proctor will take those of the Normans; none will be able to escape with us into the hills!”
“You only need fighting me for a guerrilla war! If your women are to be ravished, it is the fault of yourselves for failing to take Kalunda whilst you had the best chance. Now you have only a desperate chance, and you must attack and use it to your best ability. But if it fails, make for the forests and the mountains, disperse, even if half your men are killed by atomics in the process. God Willing you will bleed them until they leave.”
“We will make that decision after the success, or failure, of our attack tomorrow,” Ikmen said decisively, unable to commit to a retreat against the decisive power of orbital atomics, and believing the great breadth of the Kalundas River might at least serve as a partial barrier against even the star forces and their advance. “You are our hired commander only! General Neguib, you have your plan, and we have approved it. Say no more to us—just hold the enemy off.”
“Very well, Ubar, Emir, Warleader,” Neguib looked around. “God will decide the day tomorrow. And if He wills it, I will speak to you again. Otherwise...” Saying nothing more, he turned off the connection to them, realizing that convincing them to disperse and flee effectively and rapidly would be a hopeless task, and that he had much more important things to concentrate on. The abrupt disconnecting of the communication line after those words, would serve as message enough...
Karstbodenmark,
On the Kalundan border.
General Abd'ul-Mejid al-Neguib was loyal to the last out of principles to his oath as a Muslim to the al-Farani Emir, even if he thought the man at this point quite mad. Accordingly he had taken over the desperation operations of the past three days to settle what remained of the defending army in a position to hold off the advancing allied forces. To this, he was today aided materially by the arrival of 180,000 Stirlins of their youth and old age cohorts. His own forces had continued to lose heavily, though his rigid control had seized the situation from Covington's political generals in command of the remaining divisions of the Cartagenean Corps, and the fleeing levies.
His last stand was to be made from ambush, in the best place he could make it. Right before the Kalundan border and well less than a day's advance from the city of Kalunda itself was a region of karst land, the “Karst-Earth March” as translated from the German tongue of the locals. The ground here was riddled with massive cave systems and underground rivers where his army could be hidden, where explosive traps were being laid, where the air power of the fleet overhead could not read him, deep in the rocky ground, and where his men could rise up out of it to spread chaos through the ranks of the advancing columns.
It wouldn't be enough. Heavy bombardment from orbit could easily blast apart the caverns. The armour of the advancing international forces would be almost impossible to crack, and they could stand up to the attacks well. But he could hold out for as long as possible, and therefore buy time for his employers to complete the destruction of Kalunda, if it was still in their power to do so.
He had just that evening communicated in detail his plans with President Covington, and the desperate man had signed off on everything. Apparently he had lost contact with General Lasaru, the commander of the Army of the East, and it was uncertain about that Army's loyalty. Cranstonville was on the verge of a mass panic, and there were reports that the Right-Wing Paramilitaries of IGAC y NPE and the Irish Catholic Assault League (ICAL) had come out of hiding and were machinegunning the families of People's Militia leaders before vanishing back into the industrial districts, where the rightist Catholic-Distributivist Unions were giving them aid and hiding them from the authorities, even as armed street clashes between the members of those unions and the action cadres of the Anarcho-Syndicalist International Workers' World (or “Wobblies”, derisively used even by Neguib, who as a good Caliphal subject hated all such ideologies) were reported.
Now it was Neguib's job to make sure that his employers were still willing to do their part. The faces of the Stirlin Warleader Erqui, the Norman Ubar, and the al-Farani Emir appeared before him, all very grave.
“We've completed the evacuation of all but eleven thousand men of a single division,” Erqui began. “They've been left to keep the Kalundan forces pinned on the south bank from maneouvring against us. General Neguib, what are your own plans?”
“I intend to fight a defensive battle beginning tomorrow, when the enemy arrives, gentlemen, which God Willing will hold the relief force off for many days. We will hold in the Karstbodenmark and attack them from every side as they move through it, and force them to stop to deal with us or else see their supply lines slashed and destroyed.”
“Can you hold against their atomics?” An almost-trembling Tarl Ikmen pressed home the question. He had heard Rosario's message to the world, and he knew that their only chance, Covington's plan, was dangerously near total collapse. “You will send our last strong field army, save this one, to its destruction if you cannot.”
“I believe that raids by Stirlin troops I left behind have already crippled their remaining atomic capacity. We attacked several trains carrying nuclear artillery and succeeded, according to the reports of the attackers, in disabling them. We've been trying to tear up as much of the track as possible, but they will certainly repair it if they defeat us and will be able to continue their advance..”
“What do you recommend with Kalunda?” the al-Farani Emir now asked. “How shall we deal with them, Our fine servant?”
“Oh Servant of God, you must certainly attack them tomorrow. Your full army is now in place, Sirs. Attack the city of Kalunda with everything tomorrow, everything you have. You must overrun them tomorrow or I promise that you will never overrun them. They are already receiving supplies from space; they are strengthening again. Tomorrow is your last chance to get your victory. If you do not succeed I can certainly say that the army must be dispersed for guerrilla warfare immediately or all will be lost.”
“They will attack us with atomics as we flee, General Neguib,” Ikmen objected at once. “We must stand to the north of the river.”
“You will not do that if you are wise, General. You cannot hold against them. I have the better part of two modern divisions still able to fight with me, and I know I will not be able to hold them either, even in the Karstbodenmark, just delay them for a few days. If you do not win tomorrow, you must simply disperse your forces into small squads to live in the forests and the mountains and fight a guerrilla war, as you have always planned.”
“But if we do it now,” the Emir objected, “The Sedavanticists will be able to capture all our women and children, and the damned Proctor will take those of the Normans; none will be able to escape with us into the hills!”
“You only need fighting me for a guerrilla war! If your women are to be ravished, it is the fault of yourselves for failing to take Kalunda whilst you had the best chance. Now you have only a desperate chance, and you must attack and use it to your best ability. But if it fails, make for the forests and the mountains, disperse, even if half your men are killed by atomics in the process. God Willing you will bleed them until they leave.”
“We will make that decision after the success, or failure, of our attack tomorrow,” Ikmen said decisively, unable to commit to a retreat against the decisive power of orbital atomics, and believing the great breadth of the Kalundas River might at least serve as a partial barrier against even the star forces and their advance. “You are our hired commander only! General Neguib, you have your plan, and we have approved it. Say no more to us—just hold the enemy off.”
“Very well, Ubar, Emir, Warleader,” Neguib looked around. “God will decide the day tomorrow. And if He wills it, I will speak to you again. Otherwise...” Saying nothing more, he turned off the connection to them, realizing that convincing them to disperse and flee effectively and rapidly would be a hopeless task, and that he had much more important things to concentrate on. The abrupt disconnecting of the communication line after those words, would serve as message enough...
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Wikipedia's No Original Research policy page.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
-
The Duchess of Zeon
- Gözde
- Posts: 14566
- Joined: 2002-09-18 01:06am
- Location: Exiled in the Pale of Settlement.
DAY 53,
Kalunda
Most of the forces of the various powers had already been employed in the landing operations. There were precious few ground troops to be had. One force, however, had proved available. It was the 1667th independent marine howitzer brigade of the Royal Army of Devenshire. Originally assigned for the possibility of supporting Sara Proctor, in her current stalemate situation it had been decided against sending it to support her (its only use could be the indiscriminate bombardment of Ar, and this had not been decided upon as a legitimate course of action).
Instead, the brigade was deployed to Kalunda itself. For a moment all other deployments ceased. The airlift was devoted entirely to deploying the brigade, setting up the position, and providing a stockpile of ammunition. By the morning, the full strength of the concentrated batteries of 200mm guns was in place, facing the concentrated allied army around the city.
Into these guns the allied attacks were launched. It was the last gasp of the old Norman order while on the offensive, the last show of Mohammedan courage from the al-Farani, the final desperate lunge of the Amazons, the last exertion of crafty courage from the Stirlins. They pushed their way forward in considerable mass, three times the strength of every prior assault on the previously secondary front to the north bank of the river. Many reinforcements had already pushed into the concrete banlieus on the edges of the inner city, and attacked without having to run the gauntlet of the guns.
The fully modern guns, however, using modern ammunition types, spread lethal flechettes at carefully determined distances from the ground for maximum death and destruction to vehicles. The unprotected troops still moving up were largely annihilated by the strength of a full brigade of artillery, equal to the battery that existed before, and all of them at least three-fourths the power, of the old full brigade of massive 240mm's that were now all lost.
It was a testament to the fact their enemies were all veteran troops that the gunners found them coming on regardless. The supplies were forced through by truck and by runner, the men in the buildings exploded improvised charges to break through and try to push on ahead, the vast spectre of continuous death was braved by the attackers. With Julio and Sarina executing orders generally sent directly from Frayuia Risim's headquarters by this point, Major Ewing was back in command of his own forces, and the remnants of Trajan's, combined together in a very overstrength power armour battalion, whose companies were now parceled out to reinforce weak points in the lines.
Amber d'Kellius was the overall commander of the Marine Brigade, which with plenty of heavy weapons removed from the ships, served with Ewing's men in a reinforcement role. Together they served as the Fire Brigade of the city, along with the few remaining assault guns (now only four), making sure that the weak places of the defences held against determined attacks, deftly channeling the last allied offensive into the immense blockhouse positions of the concrete apartment blocks, where more defending troops waited for the invaders.
By this point, the use of gas was not even questioned by the powers in orbit, most of which saw it as a normal weapon rather than a weapon of mass destruction. The field was covered eeriely in it; all the survivors of Kalunda were sternly pushed back underground, away from the food drops and the hope in the skies back to the dismal tunnels, and the soldiers who fought did so covered in whatever kind of protective gear that they could get. The difference now was that the defenders, and the captives—for Major Ewing, strictly Catholic, had reimposed such mercy upon the army at Jhayka's wounding and recovery—could actually be saved from even the worst effects of nerve-gas by rapid evacuation to the hospital ships and medbays in orbit above.
On this day, the allies found out that they were no longer attacking a besieged city. Instead, Kalunda, through the power of airlift, had been turned into a Firebase. It was a firebase which made itself heard to the allied armies, no less, with casualties as heavy as they had ever been. The meat-grinder of the apartment blocks guaranteed hellacious casualties on both sides, but it also stopped the allied advances cold.
They were fighting with utter desperation, incredible desperation, and the halting of those pushes just meant redoubled attack after attack. They had good reason for it, too: They could hear the incredible sound of countless explosions beyond the horizon, the flights of aircraft could be vaguely discerned, the sound of missiles, and more missiles.
A huge battle was being fought to the south beyond the city. It could only be the efforts of General Neguib to hold off the advance of the relief force for as long as possible. Nobody at either battlefield, thanks to heavy jamming from the forces in orbit, was now aware of the success or failure of the other, and so as long as the sound of the guns could be heard, the attacking allies could fancy General Neguib in a tremendous fight, holding his own against the full strength of the relief force, and with the knowledge that the enemy might be kept from the city, they continued to attack like mad dogs.
Instead of acknowledging the futility off the effort to break through the apartments, this knowledge of their fate being decided elsewhere made them all the more determined. No intensity could be sufficient. Fanatical efforts were made to drive the defending Kalundans out of prepared positions protected by plenty of concrete, and as a result the bodies simply built up in endless windrows of corpses in narrow corridors and around the entrances to rooms and buildings.
Nothing was spared in this assault. Whatever happened after it, the allies were eminently aware this would be the last attack. They pressed it home, and the orders went out to attack until every unit had tried to force its way forward at least seven times. There was no more caution here, no more hope for the future as their blood was let out against the rock of Kalunda. It was all sheer desperation.
Artillery fire prevented ammunition from getting to the attackers, and slowly their supplies being worn down. They could not keep up these murderous assaults forever with their supply lines crumbling and no new soldiers available as replacements whatsoever. Most of the regiments of the still-vast allied force were now at only 50% list strength, and many only 30%, since they simply raised new ones rather than try and restore old formations.
Yet these men were all veterans, and they were facing veterans. They were locked into a dance of murder, bloody and tremendous slaughter of their fellow sentients, though most were to primitive to understand the concept. It should have done them nothing. They should have been defeated, smashed, crushed, not even gained in one area. But instead they somehow found a chink in the Kalundan armour and pushed home hard, overwhelming two apartment blocks with a thousand dead bodies for the effort done in the space of a few hours, and thrusting into the old city of the North, equally vulnerable to that on the south.
The success was followed up very efficiently by the allied army at this point. Reinforcements were focused into the gap, and a great mass of personnel pushed forward. But it was only just to face Major Ewing's reserve company and the converging fire brigades from both sides. Amber d'Kellius saw this fighting personally, in ground very dear to her, for it was quite close to the shattered spires of the old palace, and the fight was very personal, for it was Normans at the front.
Now in the open both sides were killing each other again with equal effectiveness, but the reinforcements of the defenders were able to attack from every side. The bulge created by the allied advance simply allowed, in the end, for a stiff counterattack by the Naval Infantry to cut off a regiment of Norman troops, and orders regardless, very, very few of them survived.
In any of the other battles of the siege such a great reverse in the area of their only success would have caused the allies to call off an attack. Here, though, they seemed to try to continue attack anyway just to see if it might yield anything. But, again, the sound of the guns was strong over the horizon, and they were frantic to gain some kind of victory. The attacks were dutifully continued.
Having been trown into the breach and ground up there, the shattered survivors of each attack were required to go back, to attack again and again. The shocking thing about it was that they always obeyed. They understood, too, that this was the last chance for their nations to survive, however hopeless it might be, and the personal courage of their assaults was truly incredible.
Against firepower and against concrete, and matched by a similar desperate courage on the defence, it came to naught. All it produced was the last and greatest slaughter of the siege, which went on long into the night without ceasing, having become a mad, cannibalistic beast which continued beyond all sanity and into the realm of a futile madness which now struck the minds of the allied commanders.
It was not until 0100 hours on the 54th day of the Siege of Kalunda that the attacks were called off. That the desperate efforts were abandoned, and in fact, orders were issued for all the troops in the city to retreat, to fall back to the old Eibermoni Line of the defenders, and settle down in it, while others were sent along the river banks to garrison them, given little sleep.
The attack petered out and drifted away, the troops were withdrawn, though not without being harried by desultory artillery fire from the brigade in the city, and the rumours came all 'round them. They were all the same: The reason for the withdrawal, the end of the mad attacks which were later calculated to have killed twenty thousand allied troops, and four thousand Kalundans, was that General Neguib had been defeated, and the Duchess of Medina would arrive at the city the next day, that coming morning.
Nobody in the rank and file knew; but everyone knew that they would find out the next day, whether they would live or die. They were all to used to this to be anything but comfortable in the face of death, and accordingly, many of the survivors recalled later tha they had slept very peacefully that night.
The allied offensives against Kalunda were finished for good.
Kalunda
Most of the forces of the various powers had already been employed in the landing operations. There were precious few ground troops to be had. One force, however, had proved available. It was the 1667th independent marine howitzer brigade of the Royal Army of Devenshire. Originally assigned for the possibility of supporting Sara Proctor, in her current stalemate situation it had been decided against sending it to support her (its only use could be the indiscriminate bombardment of Ar, and this had not been decided upon as a legitimate course of action).
Instead, the brigade was deployed to Kalunda itself. For a moment all other deployments ceased. The airlift was devoted entirely to deploying the brigade, setting up the position, and providing a stockpile of ammunition. By the morning, the full strength of the concentrated batteries of 200mm guns was in place, facing the concentrated allied army around the city.
Into these guns the allied attacks were launched. It was the last gasp of the old Norman order while on the offensive, the last show of Mohammedan courage from the al-Farani, the final desperate lunge of the Amazons, the last exertion of crafty courage from the Stirlins. They pushed their way forward in considerable mass, three times the strength of every prior assault on the previously secondary front to the north bank of the river. Many reinforcements had already pushed into the concrete banlieus on the edges of the inner city, and attacked without having to run the gauntlet of the guns.
The fully modern guns, however, using modern ammunition types, spread lethal flechettes at carefully determined distances from the ground for maximum death and destruction to vehicles. The unprotected troops still moving up were largely annihilated by the strength of a full brigade of artillery, equal to the battery that existed before, and all of them at least three-fourths the power, of the old full brigade of massive 240mm's that were now all lost.
It was a testament to the fact their enemies were all veteran troops that the gunners found them coming on regardless. The supplies were forced through by truck and by runner, the men in the buildings exploded improvised charges to break through and try to push on ahead, the vast spectre of continuous death was braved by the attackers. With Julio and Sarina executing orders generally sent directly from Frayuia Risim's headquarters by this point, Major Ewing was back in command of his own forces, and the remnants of Trajan's, combined together in a very overstrength power armour battalion, whose companies were now parceled out to reinforce weak points in the lines.
Amber d'Kellius was the overall commander of the Marine Brigade, which with plenty of heavy weapons removed from the ships, served with Ewing's men in a reinforcement role. Together they served as the Fire Brigade of the city, along with the few remaining assault guns (now only four), making sure that the weak places of the defences held against determined attacks, deftly channeling the last allied offensive into the immense blockhouse positions of the concrete apartment blocks, where more defending troops waited for the invaders.
By this point, the use of gas was not even questioned by the powers in orbit, most of which saw it as a normal weapon rather than a weapon of mass destruction. The field was covered eeriely in it; all the survivors of Kalunda were sternly pushed back underground, away from the food drops and the hope in the skies back to the dismal tunnels, and the soldiers who fought did so covered in whatever kind of protective gear that they could get. The difference now was that the defenders, and the captives—for Major Ewing, strictly Catholic, had reimposed such mercy upon the army at Jhayka's wounding and recovery—could actually be saved from even the worst effects of nerve-gas by rapid evacuation to the hospital ships and medbays in orbit above.
On this day, the allies found out that they were no longer attacking a besieged city. Instead, Kalunda, through the power of airlift, had been turned into a Firebase. It was a firebase which made itself heard to the allied armies, no less, with casualties as heavy as they had ever been. The meat-grinder of the apartment blocks guaranteed hellacious casualties on both sides, but it also stopped the allied advances cold.
They were fighting with utter desperation, incredible desperation, and the halting of those pushes just meant redoubled attack after attack. They had good reason for it, too: They could hear the incredible sound of countless explosions beyond the horizon, the flights of aircraft could be vaguely discerned, the sound of missiles, and more missiles.
A huge battle was being fought to the south beyond the city. It could only be the efforts of General Neguib to hold off the advance of the relief force for as long as possible. Nobody at either battlefield, thanks to heavy jamming from the forces in orbit, was now aware of the success or failure of the other, and so as long as the sound of the guns could be heard, the attacking allies could fancy General Neguib in a tremendous fight, holding his own against the full strength of the relief force, and with the knowledge that the enemy might be kept from the city, they continued to attack like mad dogs.
Instead of acknowledging the futility off the effort to break through the apartments, this knowledge of their fate being decided elsewhere made them all the more determined. No intensity could be sufficient. Fanatical efforts were made to drive the defending Kalundans out of prepared positions protected by plenty of concrete, and as a result the bodies simply built up in endless windrows of corpses in narrow corridors and around the entrances to rooms and buildings.
Nothing was spared in this assault. Whatever happened after it, the allies were eminently aware this would be the last attack. They pressed it home, and the orders went out to attack until every unit had tried to force its way forward at least seven times. There was no more caution here, no more hope for the future as their blood was let out against the rock of Kalunda. It was all sheer desperation.
Artillery fire prevented ammunition from getting to the attackers, and slowly their supplies being worn down. They could not keep up these murderous assaults forever with their supply lines crumbling and no new soldiers available as replacements whatsoever. Most of the regiments of the still-vast allied force were now at only 50% list strength, and many only 30%, since they simply raised new ones rather than try and restore old formations.
Yet these men were all veterans, and they were facing veterans. They were locked into a dance of murder, bloody and tremendous slaughter of their fellow sentients, though most were to primitive to understand the concept. It should have done them nothing. They should have been defeated, smashed, crushed, not even gained in one area. But instead they somehow found a chink in the Kalundan armour and pushed home hard, overwhelming two apartment blocks with a thousand dead bodies for the effort done in the space of a few hours, and thrusting into the old city of the North, equally vulnerable to that on the south.
The success was followed up very efficiently by the allied army at this point. Reinforcements were focused into the gap, and a great mass of personnel pushed forward. But it was only just to face Major Ewing's reserve company and the converging fire brigades from both sides. Amber d'Kellius saw this fighting personally, in ground very dear to her, for it was quite close to the shattered spires of the old palace, and the fight was very personal, for it was Normans at the front.
Now in the open both sides were killing each other again with equal effectiveness, but the reinforcements of the defenders were able to attack from every side. The bulge created by the allied advance simply allowed, in the end, for a stiff counterattack by the Naval Infantry to cut off a regiment of Norman troops, and orders regardless, very, very few of them survived.
In any of the other battles of the siege such a great reverse in the area of their only success would have caused the allies to call off an attack. Here, though, they seemed to try to continue attack anyway just to see if it might yield anything. But, again, the sound of the guns was strong over the horizon, and they were frantic to gain some kind of victory. The attacks were dutifully continued.
Having been trown into the breach and ground up there, the shattered survivors of each attack were required to go back, to attack again and again. The shocking thing about it was that they always obeyed. They understood, too, that this was the last chance for their nations to survive, however hopeless it might be, and the personal courage of their assaults was truly incredible.
Against firepower and against concrete, and matched by a similar desperate courage on the defence, it came to naught. All it produced was the last and greatest slaughter of the siege, which went on long into the night without ceasing, having become a mad, cannibalistic beast which continued beyond all sanity and into the realm of a futile madness which now struck the minds of the allied commanders.
It was not until 0100 hours on the 54th day of the Siege of Kalunda that the attacks were called off. That the desperate efforts were abandoned, and in fact, orders were issued for all the troops in the city to retreat, to fall back to the old Eibermoni Line of the defenders, and settle down in it, while others were sent along the river banks to garrison them, given little sleep.
The attack petered out and drifted away, the troops were withdrawn, though not without being harried by desultory artillery fire from the brigade in the city, and the rumours came all 'round them. They were all the same: The reason for the withdrawal, the end of the mad attacks which were later calculated to have killed twenty thousand allied troops, and four thousand Kalundans, was that General Neguib had been defeated, and the Duchess of Medina would arrive at the city the next day, that coming morning.
Nobody in the rank and file knew; but everyone knew that they would find out the next day, whether they would live or die. They were all to used to this to be anything but comfortable in the face of death, and accordingly, many of the survivors recalled later tha they had slept very peacefully that night.
The allied offensives against Kalunda were finished for good.
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Wikipedia's No Original Research policy page.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
-
The Duchess of Zeon
- Gözde
- Posts: 14566
- Joined: 2002-09-18 01:06am
- Location: Exiled in the Pale of Settlement.
DAY 53/54,
Karstbodenmark
Railgun projectiles and particle cannon bolts from orbit slammed into the ground with multi-megaton force. Vast flights of bombers raced overheard between the massed barrages which came every ninety minutes as the fleet overhead maintained a close support low orbit. They dropped thermobaric munitions on the tunnel entrances and detonated them over and over again. Clouds of poison gas carpeted the ground, and the continuous flare of flamethrowers spraying down into tunnel entrances could be seen through the smokey hell of the battlefield.
The remaining Gilean tanks fought in dug-in defensive positions, but none of them lasted long. Air-support was overhead almost constantly, except when called away briefly for another huge bombardment by the fleet on the edge of the battefield, which left even the main advancing column of Frayuia's troops shaking so hard against the ground that it seemed the blasts were right next to them.
Almost 210,000 primitive troops (180,000 Stirlin reinforcements and 30,000 survivors of the East Port Heights) and 47,000 Gilean army troops had tried to make a last stand here against the full, concentrated strength of the relief force. They had 38 low-yield nuclear devices and 15% of their original tank compliments. The ground, unlike what General Neguib had hoped, proved to be no particular deterrent for the international forces now that the full capability of their powers could be brought to bear in an unpopulated region with no fear of collateral damage.
The most amazing thing about the battle in context of the firepower being directed on the area was how long it lasted for. From 0700 hours in the morning to 0100 hours the next day, eighteen hours of hard fighting, Neguib held his position. He did it by virtue of simply refusing to surrender. His highly dispersed forces could be routed in the conventional fashion. They were each in their own pocket, fighting until the end there, or until wiped out from above.
The Stirlin reinforcements had it the worst. They were equipped to the standards of Earth's Second World War at best, and they'd never seen combat before against a modern enemy. Essentially no resistance was offered by this men as they were butchered in job lots from afar by space-air-land power. Nuclear-tipped air to ground missiles finished off the equation, and the defenders had no way to intercept them now. By the time that darkness fell and the eerie green and red flashes of tracers cut through the smoke, there were 100,000 dead bodies permanently entombed in the smashed caves of the karst land, or scattered in countless pieces around it, or simply vapourized.
Still Neguib stubbornly resisted. He had 38 nukes at the start of the battle. Because he had no chance of getting them through in a conventional attack, he used some of them as mines. These low power devices, all in the range of 5kT, could not much damage as ground bursts, and most were detected or destroyed in advance of being found, but they quickly racked up 11 destroyed MBHTs and 23 APCs and IFVs, and inflicted 389 fatalities on the international forces and more than 800 wounded and missing.
Some of the forces acted as they'd intended to. Surviving the massive firepower directed against them, they waited until the enemy armour had passed their positions, and rose up out of their concealment in the karstland, heaving satchel charges or firing MANPADs at point-blank range at the rear of the massive international tanks. The satchel charges just bounced off the shielding. Occasionally the MANPADs succeeded in penetrating it. But precious few also managed to knock out the tanks; only another eleven were lost.
Around them, the international forces mostly stood off. There were a few vicious close-quarters fights, but not many of them, as massive and overwhelming firepower was used instead. Another 83 international troops died in those fights, but far, far more of Neguib's ill-fated army died along with them. Neguib might hold, but how much of his army would be left afterwards?
General Neguib himself realized that. By the time he had, close to half the men he'd commanded at the start of the day were dead. The fleet, systematically attacking, had bombarded his position five times, each time delivering hundreds of multi-megatonne impacts to his outer defences, simply eradicating them, and allowing the very tightly packed column of Frayuia's troops in the centre to slowly and methodically roll over all the opposition that he could put in their way.
He refused to surrender anyway, in an act of stubborn courage and madness worthy of a commander of the old Imperial Japanese Army. His men fought, and largely died without reply, in the caverns of the region, the natural ecosystem being utterly destroyed by the vast firepower directed at it. Neguib did not yield, until Frayuia Risim herself took it into her own hands, this time, to end the mad bloodshed. She cut the jamming, and let him find out that the forces around Kalunda had already been seriously defeated, attacks continuing only futilely.
Then she went ahead and initiated contact: “General Neguib, just give this up. The fleet is fifteen minutes out from another round at you. I'll give you the same terms I gave to General Rulos, despite your having technically violated those terms before. You have defended your faith for as long as you could. To force your men to be destroyed in place now... Is no triumph to the cause of Islam.”
The battered and craggy face of the Muslim mercenary appeared, and stared long and hard at the conqueror of Medina on another world. “I said I would give them every chance that I could, my enemy. Every minute is precious. Why should I yield?”
“Because I am tired of this bloodshed, and if you compel more of me, I will not be pleased. And I will take it out on those deserving of suffering, rather than the innocent veterans of the Cartagenean Corps whose political generals have conned them into this ridiculous postion. Do not be a madman, General Neguib. I will let you live Gilead and find what employ as you might wish. None will think you a traitor; most mercenaries would have long ago fled, and you know it....
“Or would you rather have me raze the homeland of the Emir you were employed to defend?”
“Better that, than his women despoiled and his mansions occupied by the infidel,” Neguib snorted, but his heart really wasn't in it. He was defending a pack of primitive idiots, and he knew it.
“They'll suffer all of that anyway. Make your decision now, General Neguib. Make it now.”
Neguib sighed. Straightened. “Call off the Sedavanticists. I understand they're under the direction of one of your agents.”
“You do realize that will cost me, and may give them an advantage in the end, when they demand recompense? Recompense which will be cut out of the carcass of the al-Farani Emirate?”
“The ummah can survive the loss of land; but who can stand the violation of their harams? Better lost land, than lost honour...”
“Very well. I will do so, you have my word of Honour before the One God, General Neguib. Now signal for a cease-fire immediately.”
The old Caliphal mercenary nodded, his head bowed, and the connection cut. Gradually, the guns fell silent, and the already exhausted soldiers now had the task of seeing to the rounding up of the countless pockets of survivors and troops still able to fight, before the last stretch into Kalunda could be covered.
Karstbodenmark
Railgun projectiles and particle cannon bolts from orbit slammed into the ground with multi-megaton force. Vast flights of bombers raced overheard between the massed barrages which came every ninety minutes as the fleet overhead maintained a close support low orbit. They dropped thermobaric munitions on the tunnel entrances and detonated them over and over again. Clouds of poison gas carpeted the ground, and the continuous flare of flamethrowers spraying down into tunnel entrances could be seen through the smokey hell of the battlefield.
The remaining Gilean tanks fought in dug-in defensive positions, but none of them lasted long. Air-support was overhead almost constantly, except when called away briefly for another huge bombardment by the fleet on the edge of the battefield, which left even the main advancing column of Frayuia's troops shaking so hard against the ground that it seemed the blasts were right next to them.
Almost 210,000 primitive troops (180,000 Stirlin reinforcements and 30,000 survivors of the East Port Heights) and 47,000 Gilean army troops had tried to make a last stand here against the full, concentrated strength of the relief force. They had 38 low-yield nuclear devices and 15% of their original tank compliments. The ground, unlike what General Neguib had hoped, proved to be no particular deterrent for the international forces now that the full capability of their powers could be brought to bear in an unpopulated region with no fear of collateral damage.
The most amazing thing about the battle in context of the firepower being directed on the area was how long it lasted for. From 0700 hours in the morning to 0100 hours the next day, eighteen hours of hard fighting, Neguib held his position. He did it by virtue of simply refusing to surrender. His highly dispersed forces could be routed in the conventional fashion. They were each in their own pocket, fighting until the end there, or until wiped out from above.
The Stirlin reinforcements had it the worst. They were equipped to the standards of Earth's Second World War at best, and they'd never seen combat before against a modern enemy. Essentially no resistance was offered by this men as they were butchered in job lots from afar by space-air-land power. Nuclear-tipped air to ground missiles finished off the equation, and the defenders had no way to intercept them now. By the time that darkness fell and the eerie green and red flashes of tracers cut through the smoke, there were 100,000 dead bodies permanently entombed in the smashed caves of the karst land, or scattered in countless pieces around it, or simply vapourized.
Still Neguib stubbornly resisted. He had 38 nukes at the start of the battle. Because he had no chance of getting them through in a conventional attack, he used some of them as mines. These low power devices, all in the range of 5kT, could not much damage as ground bursts, and most were detected or destroyed in advance of being found, but they quickly racked up 11 destroyed MBHTs and 23 APCs and IFVs, and inflicted 389 fatalities on the international forces and more than 800 wounded and missing.
Some of the forces acted as they'd intended to. Surviving the massive firepower directed against them, they waited until the enemy armour had passed their positions, and rose up out of their concealment in the karstland, heaving satchel charges or firing MANPADs at point-blank range at the rear of the massive international tanks. The satchel charges just bounced off the shielding. Occasionally the MANPADs succeeded in penetrating it. But precious few also managed to knock out the tanks; only another eleven were lost.
Around them, the international forces mostly stood off. There were a few vicious close-quarters fights, but not many of them, as massive and overwhelming firepower was used instead. Another 83 international troops died in those fights, but far, far more of Neguib's ill-fated army died along with them. Neguib might hold, but how much of his army would be left afterwards?
General Neguib himself realized that. By the time he had, close to half the men he'd commanded at the start of the day were dead. The fleet, systematically attacking, had bombarded his position five times, each time delivering hundreds of multi-megatonne impacts to his outer defences, simply eradicating them, and allowing the very tightly packed column of Frayuia's troops in the centre to slowly and methodically roll over all the opposition that he could put in their way.
He refused to surrender anyway, in an act of stubborn courage and madness worthy of a commander of the old Imperial Japanese Army. His men fought, and largely died without reply, in the caverns of the region, the natural ecosystem being utterly destroyed by the vast firepower directed at it. Neguib did not yield, until Frayuia Risim herself took it into her own hands, this time, to end the mad bloodshed. She cut the jamming, and let him find out that the forces around Kalunda had already been seriously defeated, attacks continuing only futilely.
Then she went ahead and initiated contact: “General Neguib, just give this up. The fleet is fifteen minutes out from another round at you. I'll give you the same terms I gave to General Rulos, despite your having technically violated those terms before. You have defended your faith for as long as you could. To force your men to be destroyed in place now... Is no triumph to the cause of Islam.”
The battered and craggy face of the Muslim mercenary appeared, and stared long and hard at the conqueror of Medina on another world. “I said I would give them every chance that I could, my enemy. Every minute is precious. Why should I yield?”
“Because I am tired of this bloodshed, and if you compel more of me, I will not be pleased. And I will take it out on those deserving of suffering, rather than the innocent veterans of the Cartagenean Corps whose political generals have conned them into this ridiculous postion. Do not be a madman, General Neguib. I will let you live Gilead and find what employ as you might wish. None will think you a traitor; most mercenaries would have long ago fled, and you know it....
“Or would you rather have me raze the homeland of the Emir you were employed to defend?”
“Better that, than his women despoiled and his mansions occupied by the infidel,” Neguib snorted, but his heart really wasn't in it. He was defending a pack of primitive idiots, and he knew it.
“They'll suffer all of that anyway. Make your decision now, General Neguib. Make it now.”
Neguib sighed. Straightened. “Call off the Sedavanticists. I understand they're under the direction of one of your agents.”
“You do realize that will cost me, and may give them an advantage in the end, when they demand recompense? Recompense which will be cut out of the carcass of the al-Farani Emirate?”
“The ummah can survive the loss of land; but who can stand the violation of their harams? Better lost land, than lost honour...”
“Very well. I will do so, you have my word of Honour before the One God, General Neguib. Now signal for a cease-fire immediately.”
The old Caliphal mercenary nodded, his head bowed, and the connection cut. Gradually, the guns fell silent, and the already exhausted soldiers now had the task of seeing to the rounding up of the countless pockets of survivors and troops still able to fight, before the last stretch into Kalunda could be covered.
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Wikipedia's No Original Research policy page.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
-
The Duchess of Zeon
- Gözde
- Posts: 14566
- Joined: 2002-09-18 01:06am
- Location: Exiled in the Pale of Settlement.
DAY 54,
Presidential Palace,
Cranstonville.
President Covington watched as the news feed came up. It was certainly not what he wished to be seeing: Broadcast around the multiverse, the brass band of the 6th Regiment Samogitia Grenadiers played merrily as the formation swung into view, APCs rumbling over the ground with commanders out and saluting, behind them the smoke-paled and still burning ruins of Kalunda. The parade was for the benefit of one of the neo-barb commanders, some General Arlisa, a pallid, haggard, and emaciated woman leaning against a cane, with the hand of the immensely tall Taloran general next to her helping to remain standing for the review.
Just beyond, artillery fire from the allied forces on the far side of the river was proving to be too far out of range to effect the little propaganda display, having been deployed centrally to support both wings of the allied formation, where 900,000 troops were now drawn up, 100,000 blocking Kalunda and 400,000 on either side along the river. They were preparing to fight in the marshes and the swampy ground along the banks of the river, churned to mud by two months of shot and shell, to contest the crossing of the river by the international forces.
But what good will they do? They don't have the weapons or the equipment to hold the international forces off, and even if they did, the bridges along the Kalunda river could be rebuilt into the city itself, and it could be relieved that way[/i]. Covington was filled with bitter rage. Initially he had been murderous toward Colonel Richter, his aide and closest confidant, for her betrayal. Then he had searched through her nominally court-sealed records from her past, and discovered the information which obviously one of Rosario's political goons had uncovered.
I should have been more suspicious years ago. Someone with that much blackmail potential.. Well, blast it all. To late for that. The law was the law then, and it was my own damned fault not to be more aggressive in ignoring it. Who knows what the law will be now. Or what they'll do to Richter. Covington poured himself a glass of port, and drank it quickly, celebrating the prospects for revenge there, and watching the continued deployments of the international forces to the south of Kalunda being so graphically displayed. Apparently from the commentary of his translaters, the Russian news crew was debating whether or not some ten thousand Norman troops had been fully evacuated that night or not. Which didn't matter at all...
A light was flashing on his desk. Only when he'd finished the glass of port and muted the projector did he answer the com, to hear his new Chief of Staff reporting grimly: “It's been confirmed that the Eastern Army has gone entirely over to the rebels, and the Army of the South has reached the defensive positions of the Republican Guard, Your Excellency.”
“Well, we'll see if the Guard can hold,” Covington answered shortly. “Is there anything else that I need to know?”
“Several residential areas on the outskirts of town are burning from the actions of the Catholic paramilitaries, Your Excellency. The mass strike called yesterday by the corporatist unions still has all production crippled; we can't send additional munitions to the Republican Guard even if they do hold... The violence is spreading toward the city-centre.”
“No urban guerrilla war for us, I suppose?”
“It doesn't look possible, now, Your Excellency,” the man replied quietly.
“I suppose we can get some kind of control over the situation if the Republican Guard can hold. We'll wait and see,” Covington concluded, closing the channel.. And proceeding to get quite drunk as he finished off the rest of the bottle of port. And then another. He no longer expected to live long enough to savour either one properly.
The waiting went on. Covington simply ignored all reports except those from the Republican Guard, whose situation got progressively worse. He ignored all the reports of his own loyalists fleeing, in hovercars with their families, all crammed full of latinum coinage and British treasury notes looted from the national treasury, racing for the security of the north, where they could hide in rat holes, avoid retaliation, and maybe escape with their loot.
He ignored the spiral of fighting in the city streets all throughout the day, until the smoke was wafting up against his windows and obscuring his view. Then he got up, and walked out into an office which was in absolute chaos. Most of the staff had left. Some of the equipment had been trashed; more of it had been burned. Most of the equipment of value, though, had simply been taken.
“Carla?” He was surprised to see the young radio operator still there. “Why haven't you gone with all the others?”
“Ahh... Mister President. I thought that I should hang around.. Well, in case the Republic Guard held after all. Somehow should be here to tell you if they do.” She flushed embarrassedly, extremely frightened, and brushed her hair back with a hand idly.
“Thank you. I'll remember that. Let me know, then.” He went back into his office, and waited another four hours, drinking more from the wine cabinet and wondering if Carla had really stayed or not.
Finally, the light went on again. “Yes?”
“Mister President, I'm sorry to say that it's now being reported that the Republican Guards have been pushed aside of the road into the capitol, and generally routed. There's no cohesion left in the force, and the reports coming in are very fragmentary. General Rosario may be here by the day after tomorrow... ...At the latest.”
“Come in here, Carla.”
There was a silence, before the young blonde opened up the big heavy oak doors and walked over to Covington's desk. “Yes, Mister President?”
He handed her an old-fashioned notebook. “I've written down the numbers to a few of my bank accounts in the British Star Empire for you. They're quite private, and I don't expect they've been frozen. Since you seem to be the last competent loyalist I have, secretary or not, they're your's.”
She paled. Realized what that would mean: “You're not going to try to flee, Mister President?”
“No place in the galaxy will be safe for me. I've made my bed and now I'm going to lay in it. Get out, Carla, while the going is good. Now.”
She took one long, last look, a desperate one, and turned and walked from the office. Even among so much human misery, she couldn't hold back tears at the knowledge that the man she's just spoken to, who might have made her truly rich, just for doing her job, was about to blow his brains out...
A sharp crack echoed in the abandoned Presidential palace behind her. She ran faster, down to the garage, while above the guards, who didn't know that their leader had just blown his own brains out, were firing into a mass of attacking Catholic trade unionists. Locating her own hovercar, she powered it up and burst out of the garage, heading north with a few desultory bullet-holes in it from the street fighting all around.
Thirty minutes later, the body of Covington was discovered, and resistance in the centre of the city collapsed, with IGAC paramilitaries raising their flag from the pole out front of the Presidential palace. The killing went on, of course, both in the primitive zone, and in the slums where the Wobblies stubbornly fought it out with IGAC and ICAL, but outside of the lonely army of the Ubar, the Emir, and the Warleader, organized resistance in the Gilean Confederacy had ceased.
Presidential Palace,
Cranstonville.
President Covington watched as the news feed came up. It was certainly not what he wished to be seeing: Broadcast around the multiverse, the brass band of the 6th Regiment Samogitia Grenadiers played merrily as the formation swung into view, APCs rumbling over the ground with commanders out and saluting, behind them the smoke-paled and still burning ruins of Kalunda. The parade was for the benefit of one of the neo-barb commanders, some General Arlisa, a pallid, haggard, and emaciated woman leaning against a cane, with the hand of the immensely tall Taloran general next to her helping to remain standing for the review.
Just beyond, artillery fire from the allied forces on the far side of the river was proving to be too far out of range to effect the little propaganda display, having been deployed centrally to support both wings of the allied formation, where 900,000 troops were now drawn up, 100,000 blocking Kalunda and 400,000 on either side along the river. They were preparing to fight in the marshes and the swampy ground along the banks of the river, churned to mud by two months of shot and shell, to contest the crossing of the river by the international forces.
But what good will they do? They don't have the weapons or the equipment to hold the international forces off, and even if they did, the bridges along the Kalunda river could be rebuilt into the city itself, and it could be relieved that way[/i]. Covington was filled with bitter rage. Initially he had been murderous toward Colonel Richter, his aide and closest confidant, for her betrayal. Then he had searched through her nominally court-sealed records from her past, and discovered the information which obviously one of Rosario's political goons had uncovered.
I should have been more suspicious years ago. Someone with that much blackmail potential.. Well, blast it all. To late for that. The law was the law then, and it was my own damned fault not to be more aggressive in ignoring it. Who knows what the law will be now. Or what they'll do to Richter. Covington poured himself a glass of port, and drank it quickly, celebrating the prospects for revenge there, and watching the continued deployments of the international forces to the south of Kalunda being so graphically displayed. Apparently from the commentary of his translaters, the Russian news crew was debating whether or not some ten thousand Norman troops had been fully evacuated that night or not. Which didn't matter at all...
A light was flashing on his desk. Only when he'd finished the glass of port and muted the projector did he answer the com, to hear his new Chief of Staff reporting grimly: “It's been confirmed that the Eastern Army has gone entirely over to the rebels, and the Army of the South has reached the defensive positions of the Republican Guard, Your Excellency.”
“Well, we'll see if the Guard can hold,” Covington answered shortly. “Is there anything else that I need to know?”
“Several residential areas on the outskirts of town are burning from the actions of the Catholic paramilitaries, Your Excellency. The mass strike called yesterday by the corporatist unions still has all production crippled; we can't send additional munitions to the Republican Guard even if they do hold... The violence is spreading toward the city-centre.”
“No urban guerrilla war for us, I suppose?”
“It doesn't look possible, now, Your Excellency,” the man replied quietly.
“I suppose we can get some kind of control over the situation if the Republican Guard can hold. We'll wait and see,” Covington concluded, closing the channel.. And proceeding to get quite drunk as he finished off the rest of the bottle of port. And then another. He no longer expected to live long enough to savour either one properly.
The waiting went on. Covington simply ignored all reports except those from the Republican Guard, whose situation got progressively worse. He ignored all the reports of his own loyalists fleeing, in hovercars with their families, all crammed full of latinum coinage and British treasury notes looted from the national treasury, racing for the security of the north, where they could hide in rat holes, avoid retaliation, and maybe escape with their loot.
He ignored the spiral of fighting in the city streets all throughout the day, until the smoke was wafting up against his windows and obscuring his view. Then he got up, and walked out into an office which was in absolute chaos. Most of the staff had left. Some of the equipment had been trashed; more of it had been burned. Most of the equipment of value, though, had simply been taken.
“Carla?” He was surprised to see the young radio operator still there. “Why haven't you gone with all the others?”
“Ahh... Mister President. I thought that I should hang around.. Well, in case the Republic Guard held after all. Somehow should be here to tell you if they do.” She flushed embarrassedly, extremely frightened, and brushed her hair back with a hand idly.
“Thank you. I'll remember that. Let me know, then.” He went back into his office, and waited another four hours, drinking more from the wine cabinet and wondering if Carla had really stayed or not.
Finally, the light went on again. “Yes?”
“Mister President, I'm sorry to say that it's now being reported that the Republican Guards have been pushed aside of the road into the capitol, and generally routed. There's no cohesion left in the force, and the reports coming in are very fragmentary. General Rosario may be here by the day after tomorrow... ...At the latest.”
“Come in here, Carla.”
There was a silence, before the young blonde opened up the big heavy oak doors and walked over to Covington's desk. “Yes, Mister President?”
He handed her an old-fashioned notebook. “I've written down the numbers to a few of my bank accounts in the British Star Empire for you. They're quite private, and I don't expect they've been frozen. Since you seem to be the last competent loyalist I have, secretary or not, they're your's.”
She paled. Realized what that would mean: “You're not going to try to flee, Mister President?”
“No place in the galaxy will be safe for me. I've made my bed and now I'm going to lay in it. Get out, Carla, while the going is good. Now.”
She took one long, last look, a desperate one, and turned and walked from the office. Even among so much human misery, she couldn't hold back tears at the knowledge that the man she's just spoken to, who might have made her truly rich, just for doing her job, was about to blow his brains out...
A sharp crack echoed in the abandoned Presidential palace behind her. She ran faster, down to the garage, while above the guards, who didn't know that their leader had just blown his own brains out, were firing into a mass of attacking Catholic trade unionists. Locating her own hovercar, she powered it up and burst out of the garage, heading north with a few desultory bullet-holes in it from the street fighting all around.
Thirty minutes later, the body of Covington was discovered, and resistance in the centre of the city collapsed, with IGAC paramilitaries raising their flag from the pole out front of the Presidential palace. The killing went on, of course, both in the primitive zone, and in the slums where the Wobblies stubbornly fought it out with IGAC and ICAL, but outside of the lonely army of the Ubar, the Emir, and the Warleader, organized resistance in the Gilean Confederacy had ceased.
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Wikipedia's No Original Research policy page.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
-
The Duchess of Zeon
- Gözde
- Posts: 14566
- Joined: 2002-09-18 01:06am
- Location: Exiled in the Pale of Settlement.
DAY 54,
S. of Kalunda
“Was the propaganda shoot really necessary?” General Arlisa asked, leaning on her cane as she looked up to the immensely tall form of the Duchess of Medina beside her.
“Ah, my good General, I assure it was,” the Taloran responded a bit lazily, heading back toward her command vehicle, though she paused before reaching it, and took her time, meandering, so the much shorter, and somewhat crippled, Kalundan general could keep up with her. “I wanted to make sure that all of the armed forces and political forces of the Gilean Confederacy knew that their last hope was overcome. The city of Kalunda is saved...”
Arlisa raised her cane in response, jabbing it toward the distant visage on the far bank of the river Kalunda to the west. “Brave comrade of our city's defender, do you neglect the fact that the enemy we've contested with for the past two months stands there, undefeated?”
“No,” Frayuia's ears flexed down, as though she were slightly annoyed by the question, intimidating enough for a Kalundan, now exposed to far more Talorans than before, and powerful ones at that. “But even if we could not dislodge them, we could still restore the bridges over the river and bring supplies directly into the city, which still receives them from the air as well. The siege is effectively broken, even if the enemy has not been dislodged. Yet, certainly, I intend on the 'morrow to attack across the river and defeat them entirely, and hold a triumphal entry to the pleasure of the relieved, on the day after.”
“You make it sound like you've conquered us,” was the almost morose response, which was followed not with words but with Frayuia rather affectionately patting Arlisa on the back.
“Oh, come down, I think the soldiers deserve their chance to celebrate a bit after this campaign. We've taken unpleasant losses in this fight, against a fanatical if ill-disciplined enemy, and some tough professionals before that. I want to give them their parade.”
“Why not in Ar?”
“Unfortunately, General,” the Duchess of Medina frowned. “I'm not authorized to lead this force beyond the relief of Kalunda. An advance on Ar will require further negotiation.”
“What!? Surely there will be a pursuit?”
“Only a local one, to make sure that they are routed and cannot harm the city. I am sure there will be a further pursuit, but first we must receive authorization for it. Don't worry—I need to halt and resupply here, anyway, before we could carry on. I don't think it will be a delay of more than a few days.”
“Very well, Your Grace,” Arlisa answered formally. “I suppose that we all ultimately must obey such authorities as are above us. As for me, however... I must see to the provisioning of my troops, and some measures for their rest.”
“For the most part, General, now that they've pulled back from the vulnerable areas near the river the best thing I can do is arrange for plenty of tarps and tents from our baggage train, and for cars to be hauled up on the railroad to provide them with a number of places to sleep and for your command centre. There's about twenty thousand, including the contingent from the Sackon Warehouse, yes?”
“Yes,” Arlisa replied tiredly. “Though that includes the wounded who are already under your care, or have even been, ah, airlifted to the fleet.”
“Quite. Well, we'll plan for twenty thousands regardless. Beyond that, General, I do need to make preparations for tomorrow. Go, see to the rest of your soldiers, and tomorrow, you may rest also and, ah.. Watch the show which your brave stand has prepared us for.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” Arlisa replied. There was so much to digest, anyway, and little chance to report to His Majesty the King over the international forces. It is a strange sort of relief, and every contingent has their own aims and goals, not just for themselves but, I fear, for us. Yet at least we're alive.
The Duchess of Medina, for her part, leisurely went back inside the mobile command station, picking out the comms officer at once. “Have you been able to get the Kalundan authorities to connect the Princess yet?”
“Yes, Your Grace, she's available at your leisure.”
“Oh, splendid! That will settle tomorrow's attack...” With an intent look, but a hand contrasting it, by playing with her own long green hair, Frayuia Risim stepped forward.. Just to be surprised that the screen remained dark. “Audio only?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“She's vain,” Frayuia huffed. “Can't stand it for me to see her so injured....”
“That's not it!” A voice replied, obviously that of Jhayka, the Princess of the Lesser Intuit, and, well, her old Mess Comrade. “But it's very good to hear your approach, regardless of what you think of my vanity. What do you want, old friend?”
“I hear you're rather badly hurt?”
“Yes, but I'm.. Well, I deserved what I've got, and I'm grateful to have lived. I'd really rather not talk about it.”
Frayuia didn't know about the self-mutilation incident, and frowning at Jhayka's melodramatic words, just carried on as if they'd not been said. “I want your forces to launch an attack tomorrow to support my own, Brigadier.”
“I have scarcely a battalion and a half of power armour that I can order around, General Risim,” Jhayka rasped back, showing her tiredness, and a bit of snappish anger. “What use are they? The enemy has nearly a million men...”
“Seven hundred thousand at most at this point and declining rapidly,” was the lazily given retort. She was tired, after all, having gotten little sleep herself... “They're suffering from mass desertions after last night's light-show, not like they ever had much discipline or handle on their own numbers or strength to begin with. The satellite data is... Quite certain, and our own observations confirm it.”
“Regardless, a frontal attack into our own old prepared defences, occupied by those troops...?”
“I understand that the forces they have facing the city of Kalunda are their weakest and least reliable, the Amazons. And that you had something to do with that, old friend.”
“I did. I engineered their split... You.. Ahh.. You think the Amazons will surrender if faced with even a weak attack?”
“Yes, just like General Rulos did on the heights above East Port. I took out the fanatics, I crippled the divisions run by the political officers... His best division then surrendered without a fight, because he didn't have the will to sacrifice it, and they didn't have the will to fight for a cause they despised. I imagine the Amazons will do the same, if confronted with any sort of serious advance, and that will split the enemy line in two, seeing as they're spread out on both sides of the city to guard the river against my crossing in force.”
“You'll cross in force at the same time as the attack?”
“Yes, your troops won't be a diversion, I promise.”
“Well, they'll need reinforcements regardess, General Risim. It's not an environment for fourteen hundred power armoured troops to operate in alone. I'd like to have at least two Kalundan corps and the Naval Infantry Brigade involved in the operation as well... That would give us another solid fourty-five thousand troops, at least, and they're all solid fighters.”
Frayuia's ears twitched in surprise. “Are the Kalundans still capable of offensive operations? I'd assumed them entirely exhausted.”
“Oh yes, they're quite capable of it, General Risim... Just give the necessary instructions to Julio, and tell him I'm quite certain that they can execute the attack, that there's no doubt at all in my evaluations.”
“Well, splendid then. We'll cross the river tomorrow morning and show them off,” Frayuia answered, as though they were discussing a hunt, or perhaps even just a picnic. “We'll try to get you to our medical facilities after that as soon as can be done, and get you the necessary prosthetics.”
“Which may be more than you think...”
“Oh well, your head has always been thick enough to be made out of metal.”
“Well.” A long silence. “Thank you, Frayuia. Give your daughters and your husband might regards.”
“My husband, surely, but I'm keeping you away from my girls with a ten foot pole..”
“Don't speak of such things!”
Frayuia was surprised with the ferocity of the declaration from the bon-vivant Princess. Has something happened to her lover? I didn't check. Or perhaps it's just because they're utterly besotten.. “Ah, well, apologies, then. And I'll see you tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, if I have to spend a bit of time arranging the details of finishing them off.”
“God be with you, Frayuia.”
“And you, Jhayka, my old friend.” Frayuia terminated the line, and stepped over to the plot. “Let's finish the planning for tomorrow morning, hmm?”
“What of contacting Julio?” Her husband, who had been listening from the far side of the room, stepped over, frowning.
“Oh, don't worry, dear, I'll take care of that later. I doubt he'll say no to the recommendations of the Marshal who's been fighting the war for him almost the whole while.”
“Ah, quite alright then.”
A sly grin: “Do you have those artillery placements for me, dear? I want to give them a nasty surprise, tomorrow, caught between the fire of the guns and the fact, that they haven't yet seemed to grasp, that we can ford the river at will.... I'll leave these neo-barbs thinking their own gods are fighting them.”
“Just like you did at Medina, hmm?”
“Those were the days.”
S. of Kalunda
“Was the propaganda shoot really necessary?” General Arlisa asked, leaning on her cane as she looked up to the immensely tall form of the Duchess of Medina beside her.
“Ah, my good General, I assure it was,” the Taloran responded a bit lazily, heading back toward her command vehicle, though she paused before reaching it, and took her time, meandering, so the much shorter, and somewhat crippled, Kalundan general could keep up with her. “I wanted to make sure that all of the armed forces and political forces of the Gilean Confederacy knew that their last hope was overcome. The city of Kalunda is saved...”
Arlisa raised her cane in response, jabbing it toward the distant visage on the far bank of the river Kalunda to the west. “Brave comrade of our city's defender, do you neglect the fact that the enemy we've contested with for the past two months stands there, undefeated?”
“No,” Frayuia's ears flexed down, as though she were slightly annoyed by the question, intimidating enough for a Kalundan, now exposed to far more Talorans than before, and powerful ones at that. “But even if we could not dislodge them, we could still restore the bridges over the river and bring supplies directly into the city, which still receives them from the air as well. The siege is effectively broken, even if the enemy has not been dislodged. Yet, certainly, I intend on the 'morrow to attack across the river and defeat them entirely, and hold a triumphal entry to the pleasure of the relieved, on the day after.”
“You make it sound like you've conquered us,” was the almost morose response, which was followed not with words but with Frayuia rather affectionately patting Arlisa on the back.
“Oh, come down, I think the soldiers deserve their chance to celebrate a bit after this campaign. We've taken unpleasant losses in this fight, against a fanatical if ill-disciplined enemy, and some tough professionals before that. I want to give them their parade.”
“Why not in Ar?”
“Unfortunately, General,” the Duchess of Medina frowned. “I'm not authorized to lead this force beyond the relief of Kalunda. An advance on Ar will require further negotiation.”
“What!? Surely there will be a pursuit?”
“Only a local one, to make sure that they are routed and cannot harm the city. I am sure there will be a further pursuit, but first we must receive authorization for it. Don't worry—I need to halt and resupply here, anyway, before we could carry on. I don't think it will be a delay of more than a few days.”
“Very well, Your Grace,” Arlisa answered formally. “I suppose that we all ultimately must obey such authorities as are above us. As for me, however... I must see to the provisioning of my troops, and some measures for their rest.”
“For the most part, General, now that they've pulled back from the vulnerable areas near the river the best thing I can do is arrange for plenty of tarps and tents from our baggage train, and for cars to be hauled up on the railroad to provide them with a number of places to sleep and for your command centre. There's about twenty thousand, including the contingent from the Sackon Warehouse, yes?”
“Yes,” Arlisa replied tiredly. “Though that includes the wounded who are already under your care, or have even been, ah, airlifted to the fleet.”
“Quite. Well, we'll plan for twenty thousands regardless. Beyond that, General, I do need to make preparations for tomorrow. Go, see to the rest of your soldiers, and tomorrow, you may rest also and, ah.. Watch the show which your brave stand has prepared us for.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” Arlisa replied. There was so much to digest, anyway, and little chance to report to His Majesty the King over the international forces. It is a strange sort of relief, and every contingent has their own aims and goals, not just for themselves but, I fear, for us. Yet at least we're alive.
The Duchess of Medina, for her part, leisurely went back inside the mobile command station, picking out the comms officer at once. “Have you been able to get the Kalundan authorities to connect the Princess yet?”
“Yes, Your Grace, she's available at your leisure.”
“Oh, splendid! That will settle tomorrow's attack...” With an intent look, but a hand contrasting it, by playing with her own long green hair, Frayuia Risim stepped forward.. Just to be surprised that the screen remained dark. “Audio only?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“She's vain,” Frayuia huffed. “Can't stand it for me to see her so injured....”
“That's not it!” A voice replied, obviously that of Jhayka, the Princess of the Lesser Intuit, and, well, her old Mess Comrade. “But it's very good to hear your approach, regardless of what you think of my vanity. What do you want, old friend?”
“I hear you're rather badly hurt?”
“Yes, but I'm.. Well, I deserved what I've got, and I'm grateful to have lived. I'd really rather not talk about it.”
Frayuia didn't know about the self-mutilation incident, and frowning at Jhayka's melodramatic words, just carried on as if they'd not been said. “I want your forces to launch an attack tomorrow to support my own, Brigadier.”
“I have scarcely a battalion and a half of power armour that I can order around, General Risim,” Jhayka rasped back, showing her tiredness, and a bit of snappish anger. “What use are they? The enemy has nearly a million men...”
“Seven hundred thousand at most at this point and declining rapidly,” was the lazily given retort. She was tired, after all, having gotten little sleep herself... “They're suffering from mass desertions after last night's light-show, not like they ever had much discipline or handle on their own numbers or strength to begin with. The satellite data is... Quite certain, and our own observations confirm it.”
“Regardless, a frontal attack into our own old prepared defences, occupied by those troops...?”
“I understand that the forces they have facing the city of Kalunda are their weakest and least reliable, the Amazons. And that you had something to do with that, old friend.”
“I did. I engineered their split... You.. Ahh.. You think the Amazons will surrender if faced with even a weak attack?”
“Yes, just like General Rulos did on the heights above East Port. I took out the fanatics, I crippled the divisions run by the political officers... His best division then surrendered without a fight, because he didn't have the will to sacrifice it, and they didn't have the will to fight for a cause they despised. I imagine the Amazons will do the same, if confronted with any sort of serious advance, and that will split the enemy line in two, seeing as they're spread out on both sides of the city to guard the river against my crossing in force.”
“You'll cross in force at the same time as the attack?”
“Yes, your troops won't be a diversion, I promise.”
“Well, they'll need reinforcements regardess, General Risim. It's not an environment for fourteen hundred power armoured troops to operate in alone. I'd like to have at least two Kalundan corps and the Naval Infantry Brigade involved in the operation as well... That would give us another solid fourty-five thousand troops, at least, and they're all solid fighters.”
Frayuia's ears twitched in surprise. “Are the Kalundans still capable of offensive operations? I'd assumed them entirely exhausted.”
“Oh yes, they're quite capable of it, General Risim... Just give the necessary instructions to Julio, and tell him I'm quite certain that they can execute the attack, that there's no doubt at all in my evaluations.”
“Well, splendid then. We'll cross the river tomorrow morning and show them off,” Frayuia answered, as though they were discussing a hunt, or perhaps even just a picnic. “We'll try to get you to our medical facilities after that as soon as can be done, and get you the necessary prosthetics.”
“Which may be more than you think...”
“Oh well, your head has always been thick enough to be made out of metal.”
“Well.” A long silence. “Thank you, Frayuia. Give your daughters and your husband might regards.”
“My husband, surely, but I'm keeping you away from my girls with a ten foot pole..”
“Don't speak of such things!”
Frayuia was surprised with the ferocity of the declaration from the bon-vivant Princess. Has something happened to her lover? I didn't check. Or perhaps it's just because they're utterly besotten.. “Ah, well, apologies, then. And I'll see you tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, if I have to spend a bit of time arranging the details of finishing them off.”
“God be with you, Frayuia.”
“And you, Jhayka, my old friend.” Frayuia terminated the line, and stepped over to the plot. “Let's finish the planning for tomorrow morning, hmm?”
“What of contacting Julio?” Her husband, who had been listening from the far side of the room, stepped over, frowning.
“Oh, don't worry, dear, I'll take care of that later. I doubt he'll say no to the recommendations of the Marshal who's been fighting the war for him almost the whole while.”
“Ah, quite alright then.”
A sly grin: “Do you have those artillery placements for me, dear? I want to give them a nasty surprise, tomorrow, caught between the fire of the guns and the fact, that they haven't yet seemed to grasp, that we can ford the river at will.... I'll leave these neo-barbs thinking their own gods are fighting them.”
“Just like you did at Medina, hmm?”
“Those were the days.”
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Wikipedia's No Original Research policy page.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
Kalunda, Gilead
DAY 54
Night was falling, and with it, the siege was nearing it's end. Nearly two months of battle and deprivation unparalleled in the centuries-long history of Kalunda was to cease the next day, with Kalunda standing battered but triumphant.
Amber d'Kellius was among those still standing, as was her younger sister, Sarina. The two women, the last living members of one of the Kingdom's oldest noble families, were standing with their sovereign in the command center. On the south bank, the armies of the intervention forces had gathered. On the north banks, the plentiful remaining armies of the Normans, Stirlins, and Amazons were preparing to fight what would likely be their final battle.
Facing them from a different direction was the levy of Kalunda and her nearest allies. An army that had fought one of the fiercest sieges in recent memory for all of the Multiverse, and had suffered greatly for it. Thousands of Kalundans were tired, neurotic wrecks, having given their all for the land of their birth and the sovereign who's just rule they had lived under.
Julio had suffered too. Amber saw that the bright intelligent glint he once had was gone. He carried himself wearily, more like his natural age without the enhancements, and likely didn't dare show his relief that the bloody business was over. His worried fretting over Sara, the never-ending danger to his city and kingdom, and to the blood of his family, had long taken their toll on the King.
Hunched over the map table, his eyes drooping from lack of sleep, Julio listened as a list of which units could make the attack ordered by Jhayka, on behalf of Frayuia, was read to him by a teenage orderly. Even the young boy showed fatigue, but he clearly tried to hide it in the presence of the King.
"Your Majesty, I must protest this," Sarina said from her position. "The Princess is not in her right mind, given the condition that has afflicted Admiral Verdes. I would dare say her judgement is questionable even without that situation. Our forces are exhausted from the weeks of fighting, and now we are being asked to launch an attack? Let the intervention forces do it, they are numerous and have only been fighting for a handful of days, and in far better condition than we have I add."
Julio looked up from the table. "Princess Jhayka believes that an attack by us upon the Amazon screening forces will provoke their surrender and prevent them from a successful retreat, which could lead to the Amazons taking to banditry. They are inclined to that form of fighting, after all..."
"Princess Jhayka stabbed her own eyes out just two days ago, Your Majesty! She has lost her mind and you cannot accept her judgement like this!"
"Do you not think I have thought about it?!" Julio shouted. "She is asking me to send Kalundans to die on the eve of salvation! I know this! But it must be done, and done it shall be!"
Amber put a hand on Sarina's arm to try and calm her down, but her sister was afflicted by her own losses of late and refused to. "Are we to win this siege just to be enslaved by other peoples?!" Sarina shouted at him. "They tell you now to attack, to waste more of our people's lives when they are more than capable of dealing with the foe! What will happen next? Shall they tell us to disarm ourselves? To stop being Kalundans, to change our love habits, to convert to whatever religion they desire? How far shall we subordinate ourselves to them?"
"It is to prevent such things that we will attack," Julio retorted. "We must fight alongside them and show them that we deserve to be considered in their deliberations, that we have earned it!"
"So holding off the foe for fifty-five days has not been long enough?! We were fighting and dying while they couldn't decide what the hell to do, but all the sudden it is we who must convince them that we deserve consideration?!" Sarina's face had long turned red, and her anger was growing worse.. "How long has Kalunda been a refuge for the victims of this planet's slave trade?! How long have we opposed our own government's policies about it?! Must we do more to prove ourselves?! Or can we ever prove ourselves to them? Perhaps we should not bother, and should simply be who we are and leave the decision of acceptance up to them!"
"That is enough!" Amber's voice echoed in the room. Tired at seeing her grieving sister and exhausted sovereign bicker, afraid that Sarina might go too far, she finally stepped in despite her own weakness and the injury she was still recovering from. "Sarina," she looked to her sister, "I understand your feelings for this. I do. But if we are to survive, we must do what is necessary, and if that means launching this attack and participating in our own relief, than so be it." Amber looked to Julio. "Your Majesty, the Naval Brigade requests the honor of leading the assault."
Sarina's jaw opened. "Amber, don't...."
Julio looked from one sister to the other and then back to Sarina, his tired mind still sharp enough to read their expressions; the grim determination on Amber's face and the fear on Sarina's. "Are you sure, Amber?"
"I am. Out of all the units we are the most fresh and can attack with the most vigor. If our aim is to bring the Amazons to surrender, then we must attack energetically. The Naval Brigade will do so."
Julio looked at her a long moment. She was one of his most trusted advisors, and held long standing in the Kalundan court, being Julio's support much as her father supported his father, not to mention being the grandmother of Julio's intended heir to the Kalundan throne. "Amber, I will give your unit the forward position, but you are forbidden from leading the attack personally."
Amber nodded. "If you desire, Majesty."
"And to make sure you're not at the front, I am giving you command of the attack. It is your responsibility to carry it out perfectly, Amber. The dignity of Kalunda, perhaps our very survival, depends upon this attack."
Again, Amber nodded. "For Kalunda, I will not fail."
DAY 54
Night was falling, and with it, the siege was nearing it's end. Nearly two months of battle and deprivation unparalleled in the centuries-long history of Kalunda was to cease the next day, with Kalunda standing battered but triumphant.
Amber d'Kellius was among those still standing, as was her younger sister, Sarina. The two women, the last living members of one of the Kingdom's oldest noble families, were standing with their sovereign in the command center. On the south bank, the armies of the intervention forces had gathered. On the north banks, the plentiful remaining armies of the Normans, Stirlins, and Amazons were preparing to fight what would likely be their final battle.
Facing them from a different direction was the levy of Kalunda and her nearest allies. An army that had fought one of the fiercest sieges in recent memory for all of the Multiverse, and had suffered greatly for it. Thousands of Kalundans were tired, neurotic wrecks, having given their all for the land of their birth and the sovereign who's just rule they had lived under.
Julio had suffered too. Amber saw that the bright intelligent glint he once had was gone. He carried himself wearily, more like his natural age without the enhancements, and likely didn't dare show his relief that the bloody business was over. His worried fretting over Sara, the never-ending danger to his city and kingdom, and to the blood of his family, had long taken their toll on the King.
Hunched over the map table, his eyes drooping from lack of sleep, Julio listened as a list of which units could make the attack ordered by Jhayka, on behalf of Frayuia, was read to him by a teenage orderly. Even the young boy showed fatigue, but he clearly tried to hide it in the presence of the King.
"Your Majesty, I must protest this," Sarina said from her position. "The Princess is not in her right mind, given the condition that has afflicted Admiral Verdes. I would dare say her judgement is questionable even without that situation. Our forces are exhausted from the weeks of fighting, and now we are being asked to launch an attack? Let the intervention forces do it, they are numerous and have only been fighting for a handful of days, and in far better condition than we have I add."
Julio looked up from the table. "Princess Jhayka believes that an attack by us upon the Amazon screening forces will provoke their surrender and prevent them from a successful retreat, which could lead to the Amazons taking to banditry. They are inclined to that form of fighting, after all..."
"Princess Jhayka stabbed her own eyes out just two days ago, Your Majesty! She has lost her mind and you cannot accept her judgement like this!"
"Do you not think I have thought about it?!" Julio shouted. "She is asking me to send Kalundans to die on the eve of salvation! I know this! But it must be done, and done it shall be!"
Amber put a hand on Sarina's arm to try and calm her down, but her sister was afflicted by her own losses of late and refused to. "Are we to win this siege just to be enslaved by other peoples?!" Sarina shouted at him. "They tell you now to attack, to waste more of our people's lives when they are more than capable of dealing with the foe! What will happen next? Shall they tell us to disarm ourselves? To stop being Kalundans, to change our love habits, to convert to whatever religion they desire? How far shall we subordinate ourselves to them?"
"It is to prevent such things that we will attack," Julio retorted. "We must fight alongside them and show them that we deserve to be considered in their deliberations, that we have earned it!"
"So holding off the foe for fifty-five days has not been long enough?! We were fighting and dying while they couldn't decide what the hell to do, but all the sudden it is we who must convince them that we deserve consideration?!" Sarina's face had long turned red, and her anger was growing worse.. "How long has Kalunda been a refuge for the victims of this planet's slave trade?! How long have we opposed our own government's policies about it?! Must we do more to prove ourselves?! Or can we ever prove ourselves to them? Perhaps we should not bother, and should simply be who we are and leave the decision of acceptance up to them!"
"That is enough!" Amber's voice echoed in the room. Tired at seeing her grieving sister and exhausted sovereign bicker, afraid that Sarina might go too far, she finally stepped in despite her own weakness and the injury she was still recovering from. "Sarina," she looked to her sister, "I understand your feelings for this. I do. But if we are to survive, we must do what is necessary, and if that means launching this attack and participating in our own relief, than so be it." Amber looked to Julio. "Your Majesty, the Naval Brigade requests the honor of leading the assault."
Sarina's jaw opened. "Amber, don't...."
Julio looked from one sister to the other and then back to Sarina, his tired mind still sharp enough to read their expressions; the grim determination on Amber's face and the fear on Sarina's. "Are you sure, Amber?"
"I am. Out of all the units we are the most fresh and can attack with the most vigor. If our aim is to bring the Amazons to surrender, then we must attack energetically. The Naval Brigade will do so."
Julio looked at her a long moment. She was one of his most trusted advisors, and held long standing in the Kalundan court, being Julio's support much as her father supported his father, not to mention being the grandmother of Julio's intended heir to the Kalundan throne. "Amber, I will give your unit the forward position, but you are forbidden from leading the attack personally."
Amber nodded. "If you desire, Majesty."
"And to make sure you're not at the front, I am giving you command of the attack. It is your responsibility to carry it out perfectly, Amber. The dignity of Kalunda, perhaps our very survival, depends upon this attack."
Again, Amber nodded. "For Kalunda, I will not fail."
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED