Hope nobody had a flight to catch...From
DUCAL COMMAND GOLDSHIRE REGULARS
GOLDSHIRE HAMLET
to
GOLDSHIRIAN FORCES IMPERIAL COUNTY
BE ADVISED GOLDSHIRE REGULARS REMOVED FROM IMPERIAL COMMAND UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. UNITS WILL PROCEED AS FOLLOWS:
1 BN 1 INF BDE TO SECURE SHIREKEEP AIRPORT. 2 BN 1 INF BDE AND 4 ARTY BDE TO FOLLOW.
14 SQN 6 AIR BDE TO ESTABLISH OB AT AIRPORT.
9 IND ARMR BN TO DEPLOY NO MORE THAN 5KM EAST OF AIRPORT AND AWAIT EMERGENCY ORDERS.
ALL OTHER UNITS TO DISPERSE EAST OF SHIREKEEP TO STRONGPOINTS AT UNIT COMMANDERS DISCRETION. REPORT ON ARRIVAL.
12 FLT 5 MARINE BDE TO ASSIST IN RIVER CROSSING.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT AIRPORT FORCES: STATIC RETURN FIRE ONLY INCLUDING AIR TARGETS.
AIRPORT TO BE CLOSED FOR PERIOD OF 24HRS SUBJECT TO EXTENSION.
Airport Occupation
Moderators: (Shireroth) Prefect of Shirekeep, (Shireroth) Steward, (Shireroth) Kaiser
- Krasniy Yastreb
- Posts: 702
- Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:06 pm
Airport Occupation
- Krasniy Yastreb
- Posts: 702
- Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:06 pm
Re: Airport Occupation
Later that day, a plane arrives:AIRPORT CLOSURE EXTENDED INDEFINITELY.
DEMOLITIONS TEAM 10 IND ENGINEER BN TO DEPLOY BY AIR TO SHIREKEEP AIRPORT IMMEDIATELY.
After a briefing, teams of engineers go into action around the runway carrying their 'cargo' in small crates - under sporadic fire from armed mobs around the airport perimeter:
More engineers conduct the same work in and around the airport terminal buildings. A message is broadcast on military hailing frequencies:
Attention Imperial Forces. Cabbageheads. Elirian Mercenaries. Armed Rabbles.
Know that in the name of the Gods and of the Imperial Republic, The Duchy of Goldshire expects and demands the following - First, for the installation by whatever means of a viable Kaiser for the Imperial Republic. Second, for the cessation of all armed hostilities and states of emergency of an Imperial nature.
If these conditions are not met by the date of this coming Fiesta De La Bo0o0/\/\, Shirekeep Airport shall be blown off the face of Micras in its entirety.
You have time yet. Use it wisely.
Re: Airport Occupation
Meh. Does anyone even use Shirekeep Airport now that we have Mattlore Devious International Airport, Racetrack, Copper Mine, Stadium, Community College, Bus Terminal, Industrial Park, and Ashram to replace it?
- Krasniy Yastreb
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- Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:06 pm
Re: Airport Occupation
A little look here will tell you that Mattlore Devious Airport is Shirekeep Airport.
I currently have no plans to blow up the stadium or any other part of the complex... yet.
I currently have no plans to blow up the stadium or any other part of the complex... yet.
Re: Airport Occupation
(OOC: This pleases the long-dormant Yardistani in me.
Shirekeep doesn't need an airport that bad anyway, does it? )
Shirekeep doesn't need an airport that bad anyway, does it? )
Shyriath Farstrider (aka Shyriath Bukolos), KD MOU OLH XBH
Viscount Farstrider of Erysisceptrum, Count Bukolos of the Condo, Harbinger of Cheese
TOTUS MUNDUS TABULAM RASAM EST
Viscount Farstrider of Erysisceptrum, Count Bukolos of the Condo, Harbinger of Cheese
TOTUS MUNDUS TABULAM RASAM EST
- Jacobus Loki
- The plaything of capricious Archons...
- Posts: 1982
- Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2011 7:52 am
Re: Airport Occupation
Not if the dirigible masts are in repair.
Jacobus Loki
Once and Future King of the Ma'alanje
Prophet of Loki, Wielder of the Sword of Madness
Shireroth sumus. Tempus in parte nostrum est.
Once and Future King of the Ma'alanje
Prophet of Loki, Wielder of the Sword of Madness
Shireroth sumus. Tempus in parte nostrum est.
- Krasniy Yastreb
- Posts: 702
- Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:06 pm
Re: Airport Occupation
"I thought this hour would never come".
The colonel's words were delivered in the perfect tone of military nonchalance, but his eyes betrayed an inner terror at the act he was about to commit. From outside a parked helicopter he produced from his tunic pocket a sealed envelope, and opened it with his shaving razor. Three times he carefully read the contents, before casting it to the asphalt and lifting a walkie talkie to his lips.
"Attention Regulars. Attention Regulars. Standby for codeword".
Closing his eyes, he thought of nothing but the tranquil hills and mining communities of his native Asantelian.
"Codeword is Lukedu".
From the transport planes parked at the runway edge, the whine of turboprop engines gasping themselves to life filled his ears. Shouted orders from the terminal building. The clatter of boots. From a few kilometres west of the airport perimeter the dull thud of an artillery barrage. Shells whistled over the heads of the retreating troops and hammered down just forward of the lines they had abandoned, obliterating nearby streets along with swathes of the cabbage mob lurking within. This would buy time to evacuate, but not much more. The fire and light would surely draw the attention of any and all excuses for humanoid forms still infesting Shirekeep, and in their thousands they would come.
The Duke's orders were clear. The colonel was to be the last to leave. He watched at first with silent horror, then creeping resignation as the full weight of the event played before his eyes. One by one the transport planes filled up, taxied onto the runway already near takeoff speed and roared into the approaching dusk. If the engineers had not done their job, if something had gone off a little before it should, it occurred to the colonel that he would not even have time to register the observation before he was torn to atoms. Regardless from this point on, his military career with all its distinctions and honours would be known only for one thing - the destruction of a perfectly good airport.
The last transport taking off left an eerie silence. Even the artillery had already stopped. Although the smoke from the burning suburbs obscured the setting sun, no sound came from there either. The colonel surveyed the empty airport - every terminal hall, every office, every hangar, every parked civil aircraft packed with anything explosive the Regulars could get their hands on. Dynamite, gelignite, plastique, surplus munitions, fireworks, party poppers. All lay ready, as silent as the dead. Dead this airport may as well have been already.
"Sir!"
The yell of the helicopter pilot lifted the colonel from his reverie. The rotor blades were already turning. He was bundled aboard with the last few straggling infantrymen, and the ground drifted down away from him. From a few hundred feet all Shirekeep could be seen, lit in long shadow by the setting sun through columns of smoke dotted all the way to Fort Tempus. The mightiest city on all Micras, shattered and subdued. The helicopter climbed away, back toward the verdant peaks and valleys of old Goldshire. Back toward the sanity of home.
It did not take long before the first packs of cabbage louts, curious creatures as they were, found their way into the abandoned airport. The tripwires were set widely and set well, and history will never know exactly whose brassica-addled foot was responsible for one of the more memorable Fiesta De La B0O0O/\/\ events since the first burning of Musica.
For a little under a minute, a second sun then rose over Shirekeep's eastern horizon to match that setting in the west. The two interplaying made the strangest combinations of light and shadow upon the ruined streets that had not been seen since the Great Fire.
Then came the blast wave.
Windows not yet broken by rioting were dashed in by the thousand, in a ripple emanating westward. The mighty Landsraad building - endengered mainly by dust since its inhabitants withdrew to Skyla - was un-roofed in an instant, the smoke filled twilight creeping through to its debating floor behind the raining rubble. Along the west bank of the Elwynn a deluge of water filled the first block or so from the shoreline, then receded - carrying whatever cabbage-infected detritus it could downstream.
And in the skies to the east, the colonel's helicopter was gently buffeted by the rising turbulence. Although accompanied by a squad of assorted infantry, he began speaking to nobody in particular as he stared at the spectacle below.
"The voice of the Gods. If Shirekeep does not hear that... if all Shireroth does not hear that... they are beyond listening".
Re: Airport Occupation
Shyriath Farstrider (aka Shyriath Bukolos), KD MOU OLH XBH
Viscount Farstrider of Erysisceptrum, Count Bukolos of the Condo, Harbinger of Cheese
TOTUS MUNDUS TABULAM RASAM EST
Viscount Farstrider of Erysisceptrum, Count Bukolos of the Condo, Harbinger of Cheese
TOTUS MUNDUS TABULAM RASAM EST
- Krasniy Yastreb
- Posts: 702
- Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:06 pm
[Shirekeep] The Offensive Begins
In the fields around the cratered landscape formerly known as Shirekeep Airport, the morning air hung still. The night had been relatively quiet. Tanks of the Goldshirian 9th Armoured Battalion sat at their usual positions: stretched in a line, looking across a kilometre wide kill zone from the airport perimeter. For some time now, each dawn had revealed new collections of human body parts blast asunder the previous night. As certain as the rising of the moon, they would come in ones and twos from the distant ruins. Bedraggled humanoid forms staggering with resolute direction, yet no direction at all. For the tanks, these glowing shapes on their thermal sights provided a slow and steady night-time target practice. During the day they still came, but fewer in number.
This morning there were no 'tourists', as the tank crews called their targets. No sign of movement anywhere, until a lone Goldshirian soldier climbed atop the turret of one of the tanks. Raising a bugle to his lips, he sounded an old martial tune of slow and cheerful composition - though the bleak landscape seemed to render its notes into melancholy.
The sound of this solitary bugle was accompanied in time by an increasing rumble, and the appearance of armoured troop carriers from the morning mist. From the first vehicles flew Goldshire's flag, battle standard and a multitude of pennants. They spread out as they passed the line of tanks, and as the bugler played on they advanced across the fields of gore: straight toward Shirekeep.
In the cramped quarters of the Goldshirian landing ship Nider the Noble, soldiers cleaned and checked their weapons and equipment. Then they did it again. On deck more sat in huddled groups, enthralled by a Lunatic propagandist speaking among them:
"Think not of home! Until you fight it is already gone! Every tree withered and rendered unto cabbage! Your villages in ruins! Your sons weakened to their knees! Your mothers mutilated! Your daughters violated! Your fathers carved limb from limb for dinner! And beneath it all, in some Gods-forsaken cavern 'neath Demonsfall the chains of Rrakanychan himself made loose! All this and ever the more until ye men here today cast aside your mercies and unleash the fires of purity upon the creatures of that there accursed city..."
On the Goldshirian riverbank of the Elwynn, opposite Raynor's keep itself, the guns of the 7th Artillery Battalion sat waiting in their camouflaged firing pits. Here the gunners stood in silence before their standard, looking in morbid wonder at the smouldering carcass of a city before them.
And in the map room of the Sword of Vengeance, Duke Krasniy looked with his Brigadiers at the scene drawn out before them:
The capture of all Shirekeep's ground lying East of the River Elwynn. An amphibious assault from the confluence of the Elwynns, landing at the Southern edge of the Eastern Docks and slicing through to the southern perimeter of the airport. From the fields of Holwinn in Goldshire Proper, a land offensive on the airport's railway station before pushing through to the river. The two assaults would thus divide the objective area into three encircled pockets, constrained in addition by the 5th Marine Brigade dominating the riverbank to the West, and to the East the inexperienced but bloodthirsty Holwinn militia - a body of men whose memories of disease and war on home soil were freshest of all Goldshirians, and whose desire for revenge was strongest.
These pockets divided, the annihilation of Shirekeep's horrors would begin. Street by street, building by building, room by room. Cabbage by cabbage.
From his coat, Krasniy consulted a golden pocket watch. Snapping it shut, he nodded to the Brigadiers. From the Sword of Vengeance's signal lamp flashed the codewords to the Goldshirian fleet:
And from their emplacements, the guns of the Mighty 7th opened fire.Code: Select all
MOLLS WINDS BLEW AND THEY WERE SCATTERED
Last edited by Krasniy Yastreb on Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- Krasniy Yastreb
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[Shirekeep] From the River
The landing ships and gunboats of Goldshire's 5th Marine Brigade sped as fast as they could past Raynor's Keep, close to the Goldshirian bank. The gunboats laid salvo after salvo of airburst smoke shells onto the open water, beyond which stood the Keep's intimidating edifice. The smoke screen was only a visual barrier - Ducal Command had ordered the fleet to sail as tightly to the Goldshirian shore as they dared, in order to clutter any radar signals emanating from the Keep. The shortcomings of this method were rapidly demonstrated when one landing ship dropped back from the fleet, stuck hard aground in the shallows. The Nider the Noble flashed its command to the other vessels:
The agile gunboats, then the slower landing ships slipped out into deeper water. Then came a roar, followed by others - the Keep had acquired a radar lock on the outermost vessels. Their first shots whistled in with a disappointing splash among the gunboats, then one found a target. A warm orange glow in the white smoke, followed by the darkening of said smoke and an ear-shattering bang. Radio contact was lost with the landing ship Daneannis, and the fleet moved on under strict orders to stop for nothing. The Daneannis' crew - along with the entirety of Bravo Company of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Brigade of the Goldshire Regulars - met their end there and then in the Elwynn's waters, helped by none and seen only by each other as they drowned or burned.Code: Select all
FLEET WILL MAINTAIN ONE TENTH LEAGUE CLEARANCE FROM SHORE
On the deck of the Nider the advance squads of the 1st Infantry Battalion - the only Goldshirians with experience of fighting in 'Cabbagekeep' sat in silent contemplation or prayer, their heads covered by gas masks and helmets. Among them, the Lunatic propagandist continued his address:
"Know now that my words shall not go unanswered by the heat of battle, for I shall come with you. Sharpen your senses, nourish your wits, and be not afraid. The hand of Alejia rests upon your shoulder, one and all. Together we shall fight, and together we shall die. The Fish of Balgurd have no quarry this day, for you do the work of the Gods themselves. Into their hands your souls shall be commended absolute and undefiled...."
"One minute - lock and load!" yelled a Captain from the gangway. A chorus of clicking metal, then the detail of Shirekeep Docks came into view. Scattered muzzle flashes from its warehouses translated into ricochets on the ship's hull, growing in intensity as the gangplank was thrown hard onto the wharf. Screaming with fury, the Goldshire Regulars stormed ashore to the exhortations of their propagandist, who ran with them until his torso was ripped clean in two by a high-calibre bullet. The defenders however, sparsely armed and in states of haggardness beyond common humanity were no match for the trained soldiers opposing them. A bridgehead was quickly established on the dock under cover of the gunboats' shells. Alone and in small groups, shabby figures without weapons or even clothes ran between the stacked containers and warehouses, straight at the Goldshirian lines. The rules of engagement had been made very clear: Anybody not immediately and visibly surrendering was to be shot without exception. And so these folk, whose ears were either deaf or indifferent to the shouted orders of the soldiers, were cut down by the dozen.
After a time the soldiers advanced in teams through the warehouses and yards. The people they encountered seemed divided into two types: those who ran, staggered or crawled straight at the advancing men and into their bullets - and those whose sense of danger seemed at least partially intact and led them to flee. None gestured, none spoke - they only moved in wobbles and lurches. Until, after the first block from the wharf had been secured, a new kind of local was encountered: heavily armed, proficient marksmen who forced the Regulars to a quick standstill across a rubble-strewn street. From what little could be glimpsed of them in their points of cover, they looked as filthy and beaten as the rest. But the torn clothing still clinging to some of their number was eventually recognised and reported up the Goldshirian command chain - the tattered uniforms of the Apollonian Guard.
- Krasniy Yastreb
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[Shirekeep] The Stadium
To the north, the 3rd Motorised Infantry Brigade fared slightly better. Their efforts were concentrated on the railway station at the Airport's northern edge and the meagre ruins of the Airport itself. The open ground of the airport was dominated with ease, and the station - already half demolished when the airport was destroyed - was finished off to rubble by air attack from helicopter gunships the 14th Strike Squadron before the 3rd Motorised dismounted their armoured transports and fished their way through its shattered remains. Beyond, a single lightly contested city block was all it took to reach the longest basin of the docks and cut the northern portion of East Shirekeep from the rest.
Only when the troops at the airport crossed the blast-furrowed runway and ran hard against the Dockland Stadium was significant opposition met. Intelligence had indicated that this was a hotbed of resistance from the earliest days of Shirekeep's descent into chaos - and so it remained, as the Goldshirian force was pinned down at the stadium's gates by gunfire of all calibres and barricades stacked to the height of ten men. Helicopters of the 14th Squadron were called in once more to loosen the stadium's defence, but the first two hovering above the stands were torn to shreds by some kind of heavy weapon located within the stadium's playing surface itself. A third escaped with heavy damage, the pilot reporting what he had briefly glimpsed inside:
"Bodies. Everywhere. Rubble. A few thousand people moving around. Yes that's affirmative, thousand. Unidentified emplaced weapon with high rate of fire, multiple barrels. Stand by... losing engine power. Mayday Mayday! I can't maintain...."
With a resounding crunch the helicopter ploughed into the ruins of an unsecured district. Although it did not explode, the impact rendered the pilot - along with his gunner - not only dead but physically unidentifiable.
"A white flag, sir!" muffled a Corporal through his gas mask.
"Cease Fire!!" yelled the Lieutenant crouched behind him. The squad stopped their hail of bullets and the Lieutenant clapped a pair of binoculars to his eyes. A white flag was indeed waving from behind a burning truck halfway down the street. A moment later, and it moved slowly toward them. More gunfire erupted from the stadium's outer wall - not at the Goldshirians, but at whoever was carrying the flag.
"Suppress that!" yelled the Lieutenant, and the Goldshirians directed their own fire at the muzzle flashes peeping out of the stadium. Seeming to sense the urgency of the situation, the bearers of the white flag broke into a run toward the Goldshirian lines and revealed themselves as they emerged onto open ground - five Apollonian Guards. Perhaps the first time that men of their uniform had gone under a flag of truce anywhere.
***
Behind the Goldshirian lines but close enough to hear the raging battle, the five Apollonians emerged from a medical tent. Then the first of their number was directed into another tent, where three men in civilian suits faced him over a table.
"Sit", said one of them.
The Apollonian shuffled up and slumped, exhausted, into the waiting chair.
"We are here to establish facts, and you will answer some questions for us".
With visible effort the Apollonian squinted out of his blank stare and focused on the men facing him. "To whom do I have the honour of speaking? I was expecting men in uniform".
"I'll ask the questions".
"Assayers".
"Clever boy. You are Apollonian then... a regular grunt wouldn't know a thing like that".
"I'm not wearing this uniform for my leisure".
"Uniform? It may have been one time, but all I see is a sheet of rags".
"...and if you'd seen what we have, you'd know why".
"Then do enlighten us".
"What do you want to know first? Back when the world made sense they had this thing called Opsec, but I really don't care any more. Ask away".
"Tell me about your unit"
"First Apollonian Guards, First Division. Not that it matters who's where, we all got scattered in the end".
"Seen Falhammer lately?"
"The Colonel? Not since all this started. I dare say he locked himself into the Keep with the Minister".
"Who's the highest rank you've dealt with lately then?"
"2nd Lieutenant, but he was killed last week".
"By who?"
"Me".
"You're a mutineer then?"
"There's not much left to be when the command chain goes to crap. A officer pisses you off, you shoot him. Three days before, that guy himself had shot a Captain. Some people didn't like the way things were getting so they left. Who knows where. Some others caught the cabbage. We had to shoot them too".
"What about the people in the Stadium?"
"We've been fighting them the whole time. We thought they were cabbaged but they won't die. Some of our guys joined them, went mad and joined the bastards who were trying to kill them. Took some heavy stuff with them too. I saw those choppers go down. That gun was ours a month ago".
The Assayer scribbled into his notebook. "Interesting indeed. You will leave and get some rest now, but we may call on you later".
"Thank you", slurred the Apollonian as fatigue began to overcome him, and he hauled himself to his feet. He stopped halfway out. "One more thing, though".
"Yes?" called the Assayer.
"Do we have a Kaiser yet?"
- Krasniy Yastreb
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- Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:06 pm
[Timothea] The Plan
"So what happens afterwards, Milord?"
Colonel Kieren Wood spoke over tea with Duke Krasniy, who had left the Ducal Command staff behind aboard the Sword of Vengeance and, to the relief of most aboard, taken the Lunatic puppeteers with him. They had decamped to the half-ruined city of Timothea, a place burdened with Brassicosis and all its attendant horrors since the earliest days of the Cabbage Crisis. In the villa of a minor noble who had been 'Missing Presumed Cabbaged' for some time, the Duke and his personal entourage had made their lodgings.
Colonel Wood - the officer responsible for turning Shirekeep's airport into a lunar landscape - had recently been released from internment at the Union Palace of Ardashirshahr by personal intercession of the Elwynnese Prince after his brush with the associates of General Merrick. Now, having detailed his story to the Assayers and to the Duke himself, his thoughts turned to more current matters in Shirekeep.
"By the time this is over, our part of Shirekeep will be lucky to see one brick remain upon another", said Krasniy. "Gods, it's been half levelled already thanks to your efforts", he laughed.
Wood smiled politely. "So... you'll be having us pile the bricks back up again?"
"Far from it!", said Krasniy. "I know your engineers want nice big projects and all, and rest assured I'll find you some. Especially here in Timothea. But East Shirekeep? It's history".
"I suppose we can leave the rebuilding to the Prefect. It's his land".
"Not any more".
Wood sat bolt upright. "Milord?"
"What did he do with it? Collected taxes. The odd paint job... And what are we doing with it?"
"Largely destroying it, Milor-"
"Yes yes I know, but what are we putting into it......? Blood! The blood of Goldshire's sons! Sons of Goldshirian mothers! As I speak, we're clawing our way through that strip of Balgurd street by street! Paving its roads with our dead! For the sake of that ribbon of rubble we're undertaking the most legendary Goldshirian military operation since the days of Erudinzadeh, and you think we'll turn our tails once we're done? Leave our dead to be built on by some Imperial functionary and forgotten? The Gods would never forgive us".
"Will the Kaiser ever forgive us for staying?"
"Kaisers come and go, Colonel. Gods are forever. Besides, His Niftiness is a man of ample reason and judgement. Which is just as well because his Prefect isn't. By the time the other armies are done, Shirekeep as a whole will be so stripped of population that it'll have to shrink. The Kaiser will know this".
Colonel Wood sipped from his tea and pinched his brow in contemplation. "We'd still have a giant ruin on our hands, Milord, even if it was a Goldshirian ruin".
"We'll have every brick crushed to grit and sent across the river as mortar. They'll need plenty for the parts they do rebuild. We'll plough the ground into fields, maybe leave a little of the docks as a ferry pontoon. We'll build a memorial to this campaign, big enough to be seen from whatever's left of Shirekeep. Aside from that, the place will revert to Holwinnese farming country".
A knock at the door.
"Come", said Krasniy.
A Lieutenant entered clasping a fistful of dispatches, bowed to the Duke and saluted Colonel Wood. "Milord, Sir, update from Shirekeep!"
"Proceed", said Krasniy.
The Lieutenant read from one of his papers: "Thirteen forty five hours Third Motorised Infantry reports Docklands north of Stadium cleared of resistance, contact with forward elements of First Battalion First Infantry south of Airport. Third Battalion Second Infantry reports advance into southern suburbs proceeding zero four hours behind schedule due to heavy resistance, advance continuing with air and artillery support. That is all".
"Very good, give the Third Motorised my congratulations and the blessings of Ifni for hitting the Stadium".
"Yes Milord". The Lieutenant saluted and bowed again, and marched from the room. Krasniy turned to find Colonel Wood looking out of the window. Following The Colonel's gaze, he saw the object of his attention passing the end of the villa's drive: a column of men in shabby peasant attire, armed with everything from flame throwers to pitchforks, marching at quick pace to the strains of a tune played by musicians in their foremost ranks. As they passed the villa's front gate, their homemade banners briefly dipped in recognition of the Duke's presence before fluttering away up the road, followed by yet more marching columns.
"What kind of rabble is that?" asked Krasniy.
Colonel Wood smiled. "That, Milord, is the Holwinn Militia".
"They're going to Shirekeep like that? They don't stand a chance".
"I don't know, Milord... they're angry bastards. Regulars, Golden Spearmen don't scare me. Even the Assayers have a soft side. But these men... I dare say every one of them's lost one of his kin to the Cabbage. They want revenge, and they don't care how they get it. I met a few yesterday...put the shits up me, and they should put the shits up Your Lordship too. Best left to their own devices, if you ask me".
"I'll keep that in mind".
- Krasniy Yastreb
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[The Stadium] Inside
Inside the shell-torn stadium, Major Alei Wychmot of the Apollonian Guard sat at his command post. The room, overlooking the stadium's battered interior had once served as a press box for the many and varied sports once held below. Those days seemed not only far away but an outright falsehood to Wychmot's men, whose improvised fortress had taken on a form all its own. Lines of barricades made from a mixture of rubble and stadium seats, a playing field so strewn with shell craters and scorched earth that not a single blade of grass remained. In the very middle, the anti-aircraft gun which had claimed half a dozen Goldshirian helicopters and made a reasonable air assault impossible - the helicopters in recent days had stopped coming.
At one end of the field, furthest from the main entrance and the bulk of the Guardsmen defending, lay the dead. Heaped in some hundreds, many of them Guardsmen but most of them civilians; forced into the stadium simultaneously as refugees and hostages at the start of the crisis. They worked by the will of the Major; building barricades, repairing firing positions, attending to the injured and moving the dead. The more trustworthy among them had been given weapons and sent to fight at the gate; being untrained in even the most basic arts of combat, most ended up on the steadily growing pile of corpses.
There were plenty left, though, short of food but safe from Brassicosis. The scattered cases within the stadium walls were contained by the simple execution of victims and burning of their bodies. Fuel for this purpose was scarce however, and all other dead were left to rot.
The battle at the gate had entered a lull, broken only by the odd rifle shot. A Captain entered the command post, set down his weapon and slumped into the chair which had become his bed.
"Any news on that radio?", asked Wychmot.
"Not looking good sir", said the Captain, "It was pretty badly shot up before we captured it, needs work. We've got the engineers, just no parts. I've had them ripping apart light fittings, speakers, everything. Found a few bits but we're after a miracle to get the thing working".
"Well keep trying, get whoever you need using whatever you need. Do you know how long we've been out of contact with command?"
"I thought you told us not to count the days, sir".
"Hrm... so I did. But we need to get in contact. We'll get relief soon enough, they just have to know we're here".
"Relief, sir?"
"Haven't you noticed, Captain? Just listen to the distant gunfire when it all goes quiet round here. Where's it coming from?"
The Captain strained his ears out of the room's long since shattered window. "The west I think, sir".
"Right. Before that it was to the north and south of us. But that's gone quiet now. Our boys outside must be counter attacking, working from the outside in. All they have to do is punch through the silly bastards besieging us, and we're home free. We've even got the Goldshirians at a stalemate already!"
"Quite the optimistic viewpoint, sir".
"Viewpoint, Captain? As long as I am the highest ranking offcer within these walls, it's a comprehensive situation report. Understood?"
"Yes sir".
Above the field, a mortar shell whistled in and exploded well above ground level. Instead of shrapnel, the smoke cleared to reveal pieces of paper floating to the ground.
Wychmot rose to his feet. "Propaganda eh? Now the Dæmonic bastards are getting desperate. Go and confiscate every piece of that crap before the civvies find it. Anyone caught reading it gets shot. Go on!"
"Yes sir", said the Captain, who picked up his weapon and trotted once more out of the door. Within a minute, a band of Guardsmen under the Captain's command were picking up the pamphlets from the field and arranging a small bonfire with them. A single copy was saved by the Captain, for the perusal of Major Wychmot:
"They elected a Kaiser sir!"Attention all within Stadium!
You are surrounded by forces loyal to His Imperial Niftiness Kaiser Aiomide, installed on the Golden Mango Throne of the Imperial Republic by the Landsraad itself with the blessing of the Imperial States. There is no other Kaiser. You have once chance and one chance alone to lay down your weapons and surrender yourselves. Safe conduct and homeward return is promised to all who comply within the next twenty four hours. There will be no second chances.
Gods bring you sense,
Я.
"Do you honestly believe that, Captain? I've never heard such bullshit in all my life. That... that... turncoat Yastreb can't even tell decent lies. Elect a Kaiser... hah! The ony Kaiser we need is the one on the other end of the radio, when we get it fixed".
"IF we get it fixed, sir".
"Where's your faith, man? We've come all the way through Shirekeep, found allies, got away from the traitors who didn't like our allies, held out in this Gods-forsaken bowl for I forget how long, and you think we'll be stopped by some missing capacitors on a little radio? No, we're made of better stuff than that. And the sooner you believe it, Captain, the sooner it'll happen".
The Captain silently contemplated Wychmot's delusional trend and decided it best to give up arguing. "Yes sir", he said, before slumping once more into his chair, and then to sleep.
Re: Airport Occupation
Having just sat down to read this, I gotta say this is damn good work!
- Krasniy Yastreb
- Posts: 702
- Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:06 pm
Airport Occupation
Thankee I'll be posting the finale pretty soon.
- Krasniy Yastreb
- Posts: 702
- Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:06 pm
[Dockland Stadium] Victory in the East
And here it is...
To the open concourse in front of the Stadium - cleared of snipers - some ten thousand men filed in silence. Each wore a uniform different from all the others, and each had a weapon almost as unique. Their collars were unbuttoned and their beards were full. No military regulation decided their appearance, nor their rules of engagement. They were largely untrained but none had fear in their eyes, only a burning fury. Some had horses, others had dogs. From the front of their ranks a grizzled old man stepped forward in a homemade uniform, all khaki wool and gold buttons. Climbing to the top of a rubble heap, he turned and addressed his comrades:
Sons of Holwinn! The time is upon us.
To this place the Regulars have laid us a path of shining gold! But these men of arms, our brothers of the Shire, they fall weary. Let us show them to their pillows, then, with bellies full of ale and hearts full of glory. Let us show their dead to their graves, to the hearth of the Gods and to our blessed memories! Their time is done, and ours is just begun.
Before us stands the last fastering thorn in the flesh of Holwinn, and of all Goldshire. A pit of desperation ripe for Dæmonic visitation. And Holwinn of all places shall suffer no Dæmon but the one who lies shackled under the Sword of Vengeance, and whose powers shall work through us this day in the name of the Gods.
And if perhaps the work of the Gods is not your care, then need I remind you of the land we passed on route to this place? Need I remind you of the empty villages, the putrified corpses of sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers? Need I remind you of the valleys full of barren fields and hills full of leafless woods, of every plant turned to cabbage, of the stench of endless fires set to cleanse the brassica from our homeland? I need remind you of nothing! For these places are your homes! The corpses are your families and the crops are your livelihoods! And for all that you are here! In Timothea, Holwinn took the first blow - and in Shirekeep we shall land the last!
Your orders then... come with me and fill those gates! Death until victory! For Holwinn, the Kaiser and the Shire!
Amid a resounding cheer the old man stepped down from the rubble heap toward the stadium, his eyes fixed forward and his pistol drawn. Individuals, then groups and eventually whole battalions advanced behind him. The old man broke into a run - and ten thousand men did the same.
***
"Codeword Fiero!" said a panicked voice down the radio, "Fiero Fiero Fiero!"
"What!?" snapped a Brigadier. "The offensive isn't due for another four hours!" he grabbed the microphone from his own radio operator's hand. "Belay that! Codeword is not authorised! What the Balgurd is going on over there??"
"It's the Holwinn Militia sir, they're engaging the enemy!" crackled the voice.
"Where are they engaging them?"
"The stadium gates, sir! Right down the middle! All of them! They're taking heavy losses sir! Please advise!"
"Shit", muttered the Brigadier. He turned, paced across the room and looked at a tactical map on the wall. He let out a deep sigh, returned to the radio and picked up the microphone:
"Regulars will support. We can't leave them. Perimeter positions to commence harrassment fire. I want the 3rd Motorised throwing all the high calibre shit they have at those gates".
"Affirmative", replied the voice. In the background another operator could be heard relaying the orders amid heavy gunfire and explosions.
The gun positions defending the stadium, numerous as they were, simply could not spit enough bullets in time to account for ten thousand targets at once. Trails of bodies marked paths toward them before they were overrun by men whose posession of assorted meleé weapons made them suddenly deadly at close range. A counter-charge of Apollonian Guardsmen simply disappeared into the ranks of the Holwinnese and never re-emerged. Major Wychmot - being too distracted shooting his own retreating men with a pistol - was impaled by a pitchfork before being decapitated by a bill hook. The Adjutant Captain threw his hands up in surrender and was promptly bayonetted through the throat.
The giant anti-aircraft gun in the middle of the field was turned groundward to blast through the advancing masses, at which it succeeded for a little under a minute before the Militia spread out and subdued it from the flanks. The gun's crew were hacked apart so thoroughly that they all but disappeared. The gun was put to Holwinnese use and began tearing apart the seating rows to which the Guardsmen had fallen back. This drew fire from all around the stadium and the gun's Militia crew were rapidly shot to pieces, only to be replaced by more of their number who were still pouring through the gate.
The stadium's civilian population, realising the futility of capitulating to the blood-crazed Militia and lacking the weapons to fight them, began to make their escape by any means possible. Some overpowered the Guardsmen holding the minor exits, some leapt from windows and a desperate few leapt to their deaths from the Stadium's roof itself. Those who made it outside staggered toward the Goldshire Regulars' lines in emaciated packs, and most were surprised to have their surrender accepted by the Regulars' junior officers desperate to learn just what was going on inside.
By the time an armoured transport crunched over brick and bone to lead the first Goldshire Regulars through the stadium's main gate, the battle was all but over. Holwinnese Militiamen darted around with their faces coated in blood as war paint, firing guns into the air and throwing grenades in random directions as they screamed prayers to the Gods of B0O0/\/\. Around them lay a sea of lifeless bodies - more of their own kind then anyone else. Of the original ten thousand, six thousand had been torn apart by bullet or shrapnel before their sheer numbers had put an end to the stadium's resistance. The Regular troops filed onto the field of mud and gore in shocked silence, dodging stray bullets and grenades in their search for any remaining Guardsmen. But there were none except the dead, their bodies being mutilated before the Regulars' eyes by furious Militiamen with all manner of bladed and blunt weapons. No Regular dared tell them to stop - instead they withdrew to secure the stands and tried to ignore the ugly celebrations played out on the field.
***
In his Timothean office, Duke Krasniy fell into his chair with shock at the news. He stared in silence at an oil painting of the Subjugation of Rrakanychan on the wall, while the Lieutenant who had brought the news looked on awkwardly. At length, Krasniy spoke:
"Is there any... further resistance, on the East Bank?"
"None worth mentioning, Milord".
"Send a message to Officer Commanding Holwinn Militia".
The Lieutenant took out a notepad. "Yes Milord".
"In the first, that their unauthorised offensive is an act of contemptuous insubordination in the face of the proper Ducal command chain, and shall be subject to full inquisition by the Assayers and judgement by myself. In the second, that immediate arrangements are to be made for their demobilisation before they cause any more trouble. And in the third... that they have my congratulations on a famous victory, and that the blessings of Alejia be on them all".
The Lieutenant finished scribbling. "Anything else, Milord?"
"Yes, send for Colonel Wood. We've got... quite a mess to clear up".