Post by timtheenchanter on Aug 13, 2008 12:05:59 GMT -5
Here's the prologue to a science-fiction story I'm writing, called Echo. It's pretty hard to explain, but the story involves the manipulation of time (making it go faster, slower, etc.) by certain individuals - namely the protagonist introduced at the end of the prologue.
Tim the Enchanter
A black booted foot parts the flap of a green camouflaged tent and a hand follows, grasping a fist of canvas. The door flap of the tent is whipped open with a rush of chill, dry, winter air, and a man wearing a smart black and red uniform emerges into the night.
He lets go of the fabric, which falls back to its limp, rested position. The uniformed man’s heavy boots crunch on the gravely earth as he walks purposefully forward, hiking up a slope. Stopping on top of a small rise he takes a few deep, satisfying breaths – he is quite relieved to be free from his stuffy tent. Above him, the blackness is speckled with thousands of tiny stars, scattered haphazardly here and there and forming huge perplexing puzzles of connect-the-dots.
The uniformed man looks skyward, trying to find all the constellations he knew, which aren’t many. He gazes like a fascinated child for several minutes, totally detached from any sense of time. A meteor streaks through the atmosphere leaving a swift bright line, which quickly disappears.
Hope everything goes well today, he thinks at the sight of the fair portent. How many other people had seen its brief existence?
But the uniformed man hasn’t woken in the middle of the night just for some fresh air and stargazing. He turns his attention to the east, towards the faint silhouettes of distant black mountains. Still focusing his eyes on the landscape in front of him, he reaches competently for a holster suspended at his hip without a downwards glance. His fingers find a button and pull, opening the pouch and allowing a fine set of binoculars to be extracted.
He presses a small button on the top and then peers through the lenses. The binoculars filter in as much light as possible and convey an electronic image of something he won’t be able to see normally at this time of night.
Fifty kilometers to the east in faint green overtones of the night vision is the city of Pathānkot. Situated in the northernmost part of Punjab province in northern India, the city earns its place on the maps for being the gateway to Jammu and Kashmir. Under the mighty Himalayas’ gaze, Pathānkot’s location dominates all the roads and rails that wind their way north to the scenic mountain provinces.
Pathānkot once boasted a healthy population of some three hundred thousand people – it was popular once as a stopping point for tourists trekking north to the Kashmir regions, but the city even had some attractions of its own: namely a ruined 16th century fort built by the Rajputs, if he remembers his history well enough.
But times have changed. Tourists no longer ply the roads and trains through Pathānkot on their way north to the mountains. The city itself has also withered, struggling on with only a fraction of the inhabitants it once had a short generation before – it is as if the city has simply faded from memory.
For the Imperial Army, however, Pathānkot is the most important place in all the world.
The city is far from dead, but with a different sort of traffic that frantically passes through the transportation hub. Convoys of trucks and trains dash north, dodging strafing Imperial aircraft to supply the desperate Allied bases in Jammu and Kashmir.
Every day, Allied bombers leave their mountain hangers and missiles blast off from their bunkers, launching spiteful strikes deep into Imperial territory. The mountains are pockmarked with bunkers and endless tunnels, and in the depths are tens of thousands of Alliance troops.
Wresting Jammu and Kashmir from the Alliance’s cold, dead hands will be very expensive indeed.
And that is precisely why the Imperial thrust is aimed at Pathānkot instead. The legions will never have to fight in the subterranean mazes if the Alliance bases’ lifeline is cut. Constant bombing of the tracks and highways hasn’t done the job – they will have to be physically taken.
Simply taking away the Alliance’s lifeline for their retaliatory strikes is not the only objective, however. The Emperor has larger ambitions than that.
This is the opening stages of Operation Alexander – the full scale invasion of the Indian subcontinent.
The uniformed man, General Crassus, puts his binoculars back and turns away from the Allied city that will soon be on the receiving end of the Empire’s wrath. The world (or at least only the tiny part that he can see) will writhe in a mad orgy of violence and explosions in a few short hours time, so Crassus walks back to the metropolis of tents to enjoy his very early breakfast in peace while it still lasts.
He eats powdered eggs, desiccated vegetables, and a pancake of compressed meat of which he decides he’d rather not know the ingredients. Even Imperial generals like Crassus eat the same rations as his men: it is good for morale, and it just happens to be cheaper too… which is even more important. Though he wishes he can eat a real breakfast for once when on campaign, Crassus appreciates the money saved for things more important, things like tanks and ammunition, of which the Empire has quite a lot.
“So…” asks a Colonel at the table through a mouthful of what should be potato, “any predictions for the upcoming battle?”
Crassus is not the kind of man to make a promise he can’t keep. With a wide grin, he replies, “Sure. We’re going to slaughter them. Simple as that.”
The other commanders eating breakfast at this ungodly hour smile with confidence. Most officers will have answered with some degree of uncertainty or leeway for error, but not Crassus – he has a reputation of blunt confidence he has to uphold.
He engages in some light conversation as he finishes his breakfast and downs a cup of ersatz coffee. To Crassus’ eternal disappointment, the Alliance still grows most of the world’s coffee beans, and the real thing is something of a luxury in the Empire – that is reason enough to hate the Allies, as far as Crassus is concerned.
Once finished, he exits the officer’s dining tent (his eyes take time to readjust to the dark, after having eaten in the tent’s bright interior) and takes a detour to his forward position through the tent city. Some soldiers had woken early and are outside their tents, playing cards, smoking, or just enjoying their last precious hours of peace. Seeing their General among them brightens their very dark early morning.
The soldiers stand up and salute in a single salvo, and Crassus replies in kind. He smiles and says lightly, “Looks like we’ll be having a good battle today.”
“Of course,” one of the soldiers – a Corporal – replies. “We don’t want to let you down, sir.”
Her companions mutter in agreement, and the Corporal continues, “Will it be like Chengdu, sir?”
“No,” General Crassus answers bluntly, to the slight shock of the soldiers around him. Then – “It’ll be better!”
The frowns on the soldiers’ faces instantly disappear to be replaced by wolfish grins. Crassus continues on his way through the camp to the cheers of his comrades – not having heard the conversation, many soldiers have no idea what the shouting is about, but since everyone else is cheering as the General made his way down the dirt path, they pitch their voices in too. By the time he reaches the edge of the camp, the entire legion is awake and busy taking down their tents, eating breakfast out of plastic packages, and donning their combat gear. They struggle into their armor vests, pick up their guns, and hustle over to rows upon rows of infantry fighting vehicles guarding the camp like so many motionless sentries.
Ahead of the light armor is the pride of the 17th Legion: the armor. The crews swarm around their steeds, competently preparing them for battle. The tanks themselves are armed and fueled, and spoiling for a fight. Their harsh lines give them the appearance of terrible predators, eager to maul and rip apart the Empire’s enemies with cruel indifference.
General Crassus greets Copenhagen with affection. He walks completely around her, admiring her steel and composite hide from all angles before climbing up to the turret and into the commander’s cupola. There is a short flagpole mounted on the turret: a battle standard in Imperial Crimson with Legio XVII embroidered in gold flaps in the cool winter monsoon winds blowing over the Himalayas from the depths of Siberia. The flag is pockmarked with bullet holes and has a few tears at the end – a true, proud veteran.
There is also a captured Alliance flag tied to Copenhagen’s rear, serving as a rudimentary mud flap. With luck, Crasses will get another one today.
The General sits with his waist out of the turret. He checks his mount’s systems on his electronic display screens, fingers tapping the clear plastic here and there – everything is operational and ready to go.
His radio beeps and he quickly puts on his headset and presses a button to receive the incoming call. There is a brief spatter of static, but soon his ears are greeted by a familiar Caledonian voice.
“General Crassus?” the minuscule headphones transmit.
“Yes, Field Marshall?” he replies into the headset. His commanding officer answers with some very good news: “You are to attack the enemy at 0400 hours this morning. Do I make myself clear?”
“Of course!” Crassus replies keenly. “Don’t worry sir, I know what I’m supposed to do. Thank you very much, Skip.”
He doesn’t get to hear Field Marshall Scipio sigh, because he had hung up to order around some other commanders. Crassus greatly respects the grand strategist, but that doesn’t stop him (and most other officers) from annoying the man with his nickname.
On that cheerful note, General Crassus calls all of his armored, infantry, and other commanders with his headset. The noise of static and eager voices comes up through the speakers. “What’s the news?” they all ask him.
“Good news,” he says, and he hears cheers from the other ends, which quickly fade away, allowing Crassus to continue. “It is now officially official. We have been ordered to slaughter some kittens at 0400 today!”
What follows reminds Crassus why he is so proud of the men (and women) he commands, his comrades in arms. His ears are filled with their ecstatic howls – fear is not a word in their vocabularies, and they are positively itching to prove their mettle again. What officer can ask for anything more?
“Those GATO bastards won’t know what hit them!” a voice Crassus recognizes as Colonel Ibrahim shouts. He is not the only one to pile the Alliance with abuse. “It’ll be just like Chengdu again, my friends,” Crassus announces to general excitement. Then, in a theatric voice, “The Emperor wishes to strike a mighty blow against our enemies – and we will be the kick to the crotch!”
Very good at eloquent speeches, Crassus is.
The officers discuss over the airwaves nothing overly important – several lengthy minutes pass before Crassus realizes that he is talking about nothing but coffee. That starts a conversation about food, and what kind restaurants will be “liberated” once Pathānkot is taken. It is quite interesting that no matter how much death and violence occurs in war, its participants always have a mysterious urge to eat out once it is over.
Four o’clock in the morning approaches unusually quickly, which must mean Crassus is having fun, if the adage is to be believed. Crassus receives his orders, and he relays those orders to move to position to his subordinates. The multitudes of tank crewmen expertly access their tanks through the rear hatch and man their mounts.
“This is it,” he mutters to himself happily. He tells the driver to start the engine – “Yes, sir!” he replies.
Copenhagen’s turbine roars to life: the most beautiful sound Crassus has heard. The power of the engine makes her vibrate ever so slightly in impatience. She exhales fumes of exhaust and makes a low purring sound like some massive cat. Crassus pats the armored turret top tenderly.
In seconds, the low valley where the 17th Legion is assembled is filled with the din of thousands of tanks and their armored cousins.
Crassus checks his watch. His eardrums have a few more precious minutes of sanity.
“Remember everyone,” he says through the headphones, “timing is everything. We cannot go too fast or advance too slowly in the opening stage – we must ride the wave of our artillery.”
“Sir, have you ever been surfing before?” an officer asks. “I think you’d be good at it.”
“No I haven’t Sanchez, but now that you mention it, I think I ought–”
Crassus doesn’t hear himself finish the sentence. At 0400 hours exactly, the artillery lets its presence be known, and in a very loud fashion. A hundred thousand guns all fire simultaneously, and their crews (who are all very deaf) eject casings and load fresh rounds with robotic precision. The artillery pumps millions of shells blasting off into the atmosphere within minutes – they travel in great arcs to be reunited with the earth in Alliance territory.
Meanwhile, battery upon battery of truck-mounted launchers like the Katyushas of old fire great volleys of rockets. The swarms of flaming lances shriek their way to the front lines, illuminating the darkness with streaks of fire and smoke.
Imperium Day firework shows simply can’t compete with this awesome display of firepower. The thought of the thousands of tonnes of explosives dropped on the Allies’ heads makes General Crassus giddy with childish excitement, though he expresses it in a more dignified manner. “Attack!” he bellows into his headset, though he isn’t exactly sure anyone actually hears him at all. “Let’s slaughter them!”
Despite the deafening thunder of the cannons and rockets, they must have heard the order, because the pack of armored predators surges ahead. Copenhagen sprints to the front, leading the charge and carrying the 17th Legion’s standard into the battle. Her turbine spins madly, making the tank throb with energy as she accelerates over the rough, uneven ground. The mechanized wave swells over the crest of a low hill, and Crassus is greeted by the most spectacular display of firepower he has ever seen, one that even the Lord Almighty and all his Angels can’t hope to match.
The sun hasn’t risen yet, but the Alliance’s front is illuminated by a blanket of constant explosions. Every second, that small piece of earth is ripped to pieces again and again, writing in agony under the flaming hail of Imperial Artillery. Also, the atmosphere is literally on fire, set alight by the millions of rockets spewing explosive gases into the air, creating a massive infernal wall of flames, greedily sucking in all the area’s oxygen to sustain itself.
The sight of thermobaric weapons used en masse never ceases to amaze General Crassus – it has such a destructive beauty to it, but he appreciates the death it delivers to the unlucky Alliance troops on the receiving end, incinerating them or sucking the air out of their lungs, over the aesthetics.
“Forward, everyone!” Crassus shouts into the headphone. “Ride the wave, and don’t get hit by either side’s shіt!”
The mass of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles race down the hill and into the fresh hell of craters and death. There are broken and charred corpses of both soldiers and tanks, scattered about the battlefield unceremoniously where they met their untimely end. Copenhagen pitches and rolls on her tracks on the freshly churned earth, so much so that Crassus is reminded of a ship in a storm.
Amazingly, though not entirely surprisingly, some Allied tanks had survived the hellish barrage, and fire at the incoming wave of Imperial armor. They do not do much: the Imperials do not stop and simply surge ahead, swarming around and annihilating the few enemy survivors.
The downpour of Imperial explosives and the wall of fire marches forward, with the huge army of tanks hot on its heels. They follow closely, but not too closely, taking advantage of the advancing covering fire. At the same time, however, the Alliance artillery fires back in a desperate gambit to halt the ravaging steel flood, constantly readjusting their aim to hit the oncoming enemy.
With their own rain of explosions in front and Alliance explosions in the rear trying to catch up, Legio XVII can only keep moving forward and forward some more.
After what feels like days but is only half an hour, the Imperials advance beyond the range of their artillery support. The rushing wall of explosions winds down and disappears entirely, and in front of General Crassus is kilometer upon kilometer, layer upon layer, of Allied defenses bristling with soldiers and guns and tanks. The Imperial armored wave crashes head on into the enemy’s new front line and a fierce melee ensues. The easy part is over.
The GATO artillery bombardment abruptly stops to avoid hitting its own troops. Now safe from the rain of flying shrapnel, thousands of Imperial soldiers pour out of their armored infantry carriers like so many angry ants out of a disturbed hill. The Empire’s soldiers fight it out against their Allied counterparts, and both sides’ tanks duel each other with their massive guns.
Crassus spots a large Alliance tank – he focuses his eyes on it, and not a second later a blinking red horizontal diamond superimposes itself on the vehicle on the General’s helmet-mounted electronic display. “Target spotted!” he shouts into his headset.
“Target identified!” the gunner inside the tank confirms. Copenhagen rotates her turret, pointing her long snout of a gun at the doomed Alliance target. With an armor piercing shell already loaded in the chamber, the massive 150 millimeter cannon fires. There is a blast of flame from the muzzle and a thunderous boom – with his head and waist fully exposed out of the commander’s cupola, General Crassus’ ears are not spared.
The depleted uranium finned javelin strikes the Alliance tank right in the turret ring with a deafening wrenching of metal that Crassus can’t hear, being more than a kilometer away and having freshly numb eardrums. Through his magnified electronic display lenses, he sees that the Alliance tank’s turret is jammed in position, but the tracks still move, struggling to aim the entire machine and its gun straight at him.
“Target disabled, fire again!” Crassus commands.
“Yes sir! Armor piercing, kinetic!”
The automatic loader inserts the requested ammunition into the gun’s breech. Without even altering her aim, Copenhagen fires a second time. Once again, the round hits the turret ring but this time pierces it, splitting the tank open slightly at the joint of the turret and hull. The ammunition inside the unfortunate GATO tank detonates, and a gout of flame spurts out of the gash created and top hatches that are irresistibly ripped off. The tank then moves no more, like a huge beast with its throat cut.
“Nice shot, Svetlana!” Crassus exclaims exuberantly to the gunner, though he doesn’t forget to praise Copenhagen, giving her another affectionate pat on the turret top.
General Crassus fights for a few more lengthy, furious seconds. The Alliance troops, tanks, and guns are well entrenched, and are frustratingly hard to knock out. Where’s our air support? he thinks angrily to himself.
As soon as the thought had entered his mind, Imperial attack helicopters swoop down upon the Allied positions from seemingly nowhere, spitting streams of gunfire and volleys of missiles and rockets. The swarms of helicopters shoot down at the hapless enemy, and they circle the battlefield like vultures. The flying crafts’ vulture personification comes not only from the way they scour the battleground, but from their very appearance as well: the drooping neck with the cockpit and downward sweeping tail, the wings slung down casually and deadly, bristling with armaments.
Soldiers on both sides call the helicopters vultures, and virtually no Imperial remembers its official name. The name bumblebee is a very distant second, due to the loud rumbling noise the double rotors stacked on top of each other, spinning in opposite directions make. Since Crassus’ hearing isn’t the best at the moment courtesy of Copenhagen’s thunderous gun, he is oblivious to the distinctive buzzing sounds – they’re still vultures, as far as he is concerned.
And they turn the unlucky Alliance troops caught underneath into carrion for the helicopter’s namesakes. But vultures are no match for raptors: a squadron of Alliance jet fighters pounces on the helicopters, and several of them come crashing to the ground, bleeding smoke and fire. The rest of the vultures scatter and maneuver close to the ground, zigzagging to throw off their pursuers. They don’t have to take evasive action for long, because a wing of Imperial fighters comes to their rescue.
Back on the ground, the Imperial armored formation pushes on, but faces harder and fiercer resistance with every increasing meter. The Alliance troops at the front fight as long as they can before being overrun, and then fall back to the next line of defense. Unfortunately, the Alliance is more willing to give up ground than they used to be – the Imperial Army had beaten that very painful lesson into them with Suez.
As the Imperial advance moves forwards, the Alliance lines retreat, smartly avoiding the possibility of a breakthrough. The two great armies might fight this running battle forever, but fortunately, the Rāvi River gets in the way. Imperial bombers had blown all of the bridges, and tens of thousands of Allied troops suddenly find themselves trapped with their backs to the river.
General Crassus finally realizes that it is morning and that the sun has risen, thanks to the beautiful clarity of the scene in front of him. The western bank of the river quickly becomes a killing field. Under overwhelming Imperial firepower, the braver enemy troops that fight to the end are all easily massacred. The kittens with less fiber try to flee across the river – hundreds of soldiers cast off their body armor and weapons and try to swim to safety. Other tanks and infantry fighting vehicles wade several meters into the waters before getting stuck or submerged.
Rows of Imperial tanks and crowds of infantry go right up to the edge of the river, eager to shoot at the fleeing enemy who cannot do anything to fight back. Copenhagen aims her muzzle at an amphibious carrier and blasts it out of the water, ripping it to pieces and sinking it. General Crassus mans the remote machine gun on top of Copenhagen’s turret. The weapon spits bullets at the struggling figures thrashing in the river water as he simply looks at them: his eyes spot a target, he presses a button to make the machine gun shoot at the same spot, and he moves on to the next target.
This is not war, General Crassus thinks to himself thoughtfully as he ruthlessly guns down the defenseless Alliance troops swimming and drowning in panic, this is killing for the fun of it…
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
The completely one-sided battle at the Rāvi River only lasts a few minutes, though a massacre is a better word for it. With all of the Imperial lighter armor being amphibious, the soldiers get back into their carriers, which splash into the river and swim across. The tanks stay behind, covering their lighter fellows with their big cannons, waiting for the engineers to arrive.
And soon enough, they do. The infantry creates a beachhead on the opposite bank of the river, allowing the plethora of bridge layers to wade into the water and extend their folding platforms.
“Let’s go!” Crassus shouts. Copenhagen rushes forward and clatters its way across one of the precarious, portable bridges. The thousands of Imperial tanks make their way across bit by bit, funneling themselves to the other side via the thin metal paths created slightly submerged in the river.
Once the Rāvi is cleared, the Imperial assault resumes with a vengeance. Emboldened by the successful total destruction of a good portion of the Alliance army defending Pathānkot, the 17th Legion fervently presses on against the demoralized enemy. Despite their huge losses, the GATO troops withdraw competently, fighting back every meter of the way. Reluctantly, General Crassus has to respect his adversaries’ discipline that had been absent in those early, happy, easy campaigns.
After hours of ruthless fighting across the churned up Indian landscape of abandoned wheat and rice fields, and rows of flattened dead fruit trees, the Imperial advance reaches the outskirts of Pathānkot itself. They soon experience the unutterable joy of fighting in an urban environment.
But Crassus isn’t worried. He has fought in steel and concrete jungles before, and is actually quite famous for it. He urges Copenhagen forward and charges straight into the maze of streets, and the 17th Legion follows.
There are Alliance soldiers on rooftops and in windows and on the streets, firing great sheets of bullets in all directions. With his head still poking out of Copenhagen’s turret, Crassus defiantly shoots back with the remote heavy machine gun and lobs grenades with the coaxial launcher. His mount points her long snout at a squat, ugly building, and the resulting explosion blasts everything inside out through the windows.
The tidal wave of tanks rumbles down the streets, flanked by infantry which swarm around the armor. The Alliance troops holed up in the city cut down many Imperial troops exposed in the streets, but the tanks swiftly retaliate by blasting apart every edifice of resistance. The vultures show up again, knocking down the bowling pins of enemy soldiers on rooftops. Other assault helicopters dodge (some unsuccessfully) streams of heavy gunfire and missiles to drop shock troops at the massive railroad switchyard to the east of the city.
The 17th Legion doesn’t venture downtown – fighting in the low-level sprawl around the city is slow and difficult enough. Instead, the Imperial advance splits in two parts heading east in northerly and southerly directions. Realizing their intentions, the Alliance troops holed up in the city center retreat to escape an almost certain encirclement.
Even at the fringes of Pathānkot, the Allied resistance begins to melt away as the enemy pulls out, conceding the city as lost. Such an opportunity will never again present itself. “Everyone, to the switchyards immediately! No stopping!” Crassus orders, hoping to close off the city before the enemy troops have a chance to escape.
Copenhagen charges down the streets, crashing through roadblocks and crushing cars scattered here and there. A few Alliance troops fighting a rear-guard action shoot at the onrushing Imperial armor, but Crassus and the column of tanks he is leading don’t pause to stop – they simply fire on the move.
After an indistinguishable length of time speeding through the streets under fire, Crassus’ armor arrives at the eastern switchyard to discover it crawling with Alliance troops and tanks, making their retreat to the southeast. Imperial heliborne troops have already made their presence known: they are fighting a furious battle against the soldiers assigned to fight to the end, to cover the rest of the army’s withdrawal.
Crassus’s tanks and mechanized infantry dive straight into the battle at the railroad switchyard. Copenhagen duels with Alliance armor hiding and striking from behind the trains and cars tossed helter-skelter over the twisted and mangled tracks. Imperial air support pays the enemy a visit, menacing the retreating columns with gunfire and rockets.
The tank to Copenhagen’s side explodes in spectacular fashion. An Alliance tank shell had ricocheted off the front glacis plate and pierced the turret ring. Like the cork in a bottle of champagne, the turret of the tank shoots skyward, doing several somersaults and scattering flaming chunks of armor in all directions.
Crassus spies the offending partly behind an overturned, wrecked locomotive, with only the turret exposed. “Target spotted, behind that train!” he yells into his headset to his own loader and every other tank commander in the vicinity.
Copenhagen’s gun spits fire and Crassus’s eardrums are blasted yet again. The shell hits the enemy tank’s thick front turret armor, which apparently does nothing at all except annoy the brute. He sees a big, bright flash from the Alliance tank’s muzzle–
BAM!
For the sixth time in Copenhagen’s very long life (for a tank), she is hit by an Alliance tank shell, but miraculously survives again. The impact makes Crassus’ teeth grind together, blinds him temporarily, and makes him wonder whether his ears will ever be the same.
Copenhagen fires a second time, hitting the enemy tank’s well-protected turret again – it will survive many more hits, but it doesn’t. An Imperial machine comes up from the side, hitting the Alliance tank in its thinner flanks, where there is no overturned locomotive to protect it.
The other half of the pincer formation soon reaches the switchyard from the opposite direction, completing the encirclement of Pathānkot city. The Alliance pitifully attempts to counterattack, but they are easily repulsed. The few unfortunate hundreds to thousands of enemy troops in the city are stuck there, with no hope of relief.
Even so, the fighting doesn’t die down for another hour. Imperial soldiers scour the area, ferreting out kittens who had barricaded themselves in buildings and the odd sniper lurking on a rooftop. Crassus’ troops take a few hundred prisoners who sensibly decide to surrender rather than fight on from their doomed, surrounded positions.
“General,” one of his commanders asks through the headset, “do we pursue the enemy?”
Crassus thinks that through for a moment. With a heavy sigh, he answers, “No. Their excuse of a counterattack failed, so we don’t have to worry about them taking this position back. But if we give chase, we’re just going to fight an endless running battle with them – better to try again tomorrow and get some rest now. We certainly earned it.”
As much as he wants to kill more Allied troops, his reasoning gets the better of him. He orders his army to defend the newly conquered Pathānkot and wait for orders.
Soon enough, they arrive. Field Marshall Scipio tells Crassus to do exactly what he had decided to do under his own initiative. “Congratulations, General,” Scipio says over the airwaves, “you did a marvelous job. We attack again tomorrow at 0800, but until then, you may do as you please.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Having sat in the rather uncomfortable commander’s seat of a tank for a good half-day, General Crassus decides to stretch his legs. He clambers out of the cupola and climbs down to the good, solid earth, and is able to see Copenhagen in full.
On her front glacis plate is a gouge where the Alliance tank shell had hit. Her metal hide is pockmarked with hundreds of flattened bullets and a few scorch marks from infantry-launched anti-tank missiles. The standard of the 17th Legion still flaps from the turret flagpole, though the Imperial Crimson flag has a good number of new bullet holes and a few tears that weren’t there before. He wonders how he had once again lived through the entire battle (with his torso sticking out of the turret!) without a scratch – Copenhagen is good luck. That’s the only explanation.
“General – would you like some coffee, sir?” Crassus hears a voice call out to him. He turns around and is greeted by the magnificent sight of soldier holding a “liberated” coffee pot in one hand and several mugs in the other. It suddenly occurs to him how hungry he really is at the moment – it is past mid-afternoon, and the last time Crassus had eaten was at 0200 hours that morning.
“Of course, Private!” the General answers earnestly. “I would kill for some real coffee right now!”
Fortunately, he doesn’t have to resort to homicide – he had already done all the killing he needed for that coffee today. The Private fills up a mug with the hot black liquid and asks Crassus if he wants milk or sugar, but he refuses: he doesn’t want to dilute the flavor of real coffee beans.
He takes four large swallows of the scalding liquid and empties the mug. Ahhh… like a little piece of heaven, Crassus thinks contentedly as he drinks. Once finished, he breathes a satisfying sigh and asks the Private, “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Private Xyston Papadopoulos, sir!” the soldier replies.
“Congratulations, Corporal, you’ve been promoted. If your commanding officer gives you any lip, let me know, alright?”
The newly promoted Corporal’s eyes go wide with excitement and his mouth erupts into a huge grin. He gives Crassus the most impressive salute he has seen and says, “Yes sir! Thank you, sir!”
“Your welcome. Now, fill me up another cup!”
General Crassus enjoys the relative peace he had earned, drinking cup after cup of deliciously real coffee. He then relieves himself for the first time all day in a switchyard lavatory. Life is good, Crassus decides.
But there is that nagging disappointment in the back of his mind. He wanted to crush the Alliance utterly at Pathānkot – he took the city brilliantly, but unfortunately, a large portion of the enemy army survived intact, though not unscathed. He will ultimately fight the survivors of today’s battle tomorrow and the day after that, and the day after that, all because he didn’t quite kill everyone in the first smashing blow.
Not like Chengdu at all, Crassus admits heavily. The next cup of real coffee he drinks has an unpleasant, bitter taste.
Bbbbbrrrrrraaaaaaapppppppppp!
“What the hell?” General Crassus exclaims after spitting out some precious coffee and looking in the direction of the sound of an Alliance assault rifle firing an entire thirty-round magazine on full automatic. He sets the half-filled mug on top of Copenhagen’s hull and scrambles up her side and into the commander’s cupola.
He doesn’t see a pretty sight. At least two dozen Imperial soldiers lie dead on the ground, all bleeding from head wounds. The solitary Alliance rifle barks again and Crassus watches appalled as more of his men are cut down with shots to the head. He fixes his eyes on where he had seen the muzzle flashing, and fires the remote turret machine gun.
It does nothing. There is a blur of black that darts from one bit of cover to the next, and after another entire magazine is fired, another thirty Imperial troops are killed. “What are you waiting for?” Crassus shouts, perhaps even fearfully, though he will never admit it. “Open fire!”
His infantry shoot wildly in all directions, firing at the slightest twitch in the shadows. Crassus’ eyes dart back and forth, trying to spot the invisible attacker. There’s a fleeting glimpse of a flash of black – he aims his head at it and fires the machine gun, but realizes after a few seconds that he had simply pulverized a piece of empty, concrete wall. Meanwhile, Copenhagen and all of her armored fellows point their guns at whatever likely cover the killer phantom might be hiding behind, and blast away with high explosive shells.
It is to no avail. More of his soldiers die, and inexplicitly some of his tanks explode. General Crassus now feels a totally unknown sensation: panic. Fighting against a totally unbeatable, unknown, and unseen enemy is–
There is a tap on Crassus’ shoulder. “WHAT?” he inquires angrily to the soldier stupid enough to interrupt him in such a strange, dire situation. He whips around and his mouth opens in surprise.
Standing on the back of Copenhagen’s turret is man he doesn’t recognize, and after a moment Crassus realizes he is wearing the opposite side’s uniform. On top of that, he has an Alliance model assault rifle slung on his back, the Legio XVII standard in his left hand, and an uncomfortably sharp bayonet in the other.
The light-brown haired Alliance soldier with dark coffee colored eyes plunges the bayonet into Crassus’s chest, leaves it in there for a brief moment, and then yanks it out. Quick as a flash, the man flings a hand grenade down the hatch and jumps off with unnatural speed, disappearing from the bleeding and dying General’s view – he dies stunned, unable to believe the reality bleeding messily from the wound in his chest and staining his already dark uniform. The grenade’s small explosion inside Copenhagen’s hull kills the other two crewmen and Crassus with a pyre of flame, but the faithful mount survives its newly late master.
With a blur of movement and perhaps even a sonic boom, Captain Jason Edwards of the GATO Alliance is gone.
Tim the Enchanter
ECHO
Prologue: One Week Later
[/i][/center][/b]A black booted foot parts the flap of a green camouflaged tent and a hand follows, grasping a fist of canvas. The door flap of the tent is whipped open with a rush of chill, dry, winter air, and a man wearing a smart black and red uniform emerges into the night.
He lets go of the fabric, which falls back to its limp, rested position. The uniformed man’s heavy boots crunch on the gravely earth as he walks purposefully forward, hiking up a slope. Stopping on top of a small rise he takes a few deep, satisfying breaths – he is quite relieved to be free from his stuffy tent. Above him, the blackness is speckled with thousands of tiny stars, scattered haphazardly here and there and forming huge perplexing puzzles of connect-the-dots.
The uniformed man looks skyward, trying to find all the constellations he knew, which aren’t many. He gazes like a fascinated child for several minutes, totally detached from any sense of time. A meteor streaks through the atmosphere leaving a swift bright line, which quickly disappears.
Hope everything goes well today, he thinks at the sight of the fair portent. How many other people had seen its brief existence?
But the uniformed man hasn’t woken in the middle of the night just for some fresh air and stargazing. He turns his attention to the east, towards the faint silhouettes of distant black mountains. Still focusing his eyes on the landscape in front of him, he reaches competently for a holster suspended at his hip without a downwards glance. His fingers find a button and pull, opening the pouch and allowing a fine set of binoculars to be extracted.
He presses a small button on the top and then peers through the lenses. The binoculars filter in as much light as possible and convey an electronic image of something he won’t be able to see normally at this time of night.
Fifty kilometers to the east in faint green overtones of the night vision is the city of Pathānkot. Situated in the northernmost part of Punjab province in northern India, the city earns its place on the maps for being the gateway to Jammu and Kashmir. Under the mighty Himalayas’ gaze, Pathānkot’s location dominates all the roads and rails that wind their way north to the scenic mountain provinces.
Pathānkot once boasted a healthy population of some three hundred thousand people – it was popular once as a stopping point for tourists trekking north to the Kashmir regions, but the city even had some attractions of its own: namely a ruined 16th century fort built by the Rajputs, if he remembers his history well enough.
But times have changed. Tourists no longer ply the roads and trains through Pathānkot on their way north to the mountains. The city itself has also withered, struggling on with only a fraction of the inhabitants it once had a short generation before – it is as if the city has simply faded from memory.
For the Imperial Army, however, Pathānkot is the most important place in all the world.
The city is far from dead, but with a different sort of traffic that frantically passes through the transportation hub. Convoys of trucks and trains dash north, dodging strafing Imperial aircraft to supply the desperate Allied bases in Jammu and Kashmir.
Every day, Allied bombers leave their mountain hangers and missiles blast off from their bunkers, launching spiteful strikes deep into Imperial territory. The mountains are pockmarked with bunkers and endless tunnels, and in the depths are tens of thousands of Alliance troops.
Wresting Jammu and Kashmir from the Alliance’s cold, dead hands will be very expensive indeed.
And that is precisely why the Imperial thrust is aimed at Pathānkot instead. The legions will never have to fight in the subterranean mazes if the Alliance bases’ lifeline is cut. Constant bombing of the tracks and highways hasn’t done the job – they will have to be physically taken.
Simply taking away the Alliance’s lifeline for their retaliatory strikes is not the only objective, however. The Emperor has larger ambitions than that.
This is the opening stages of Operation Alexander – the full scale invasion of the Indian subcontinent.
The uniformed man, General Crassus, puts his binoculars back and turns away from the Allied city that will soon be on the receiving end of the Empire’s wrath. The world (or at least only the tiny part that he can see) will writhe in a mad orgy of violence and explosions in a few short hours time, so Crassus walks back to the metropolis of tents to enjoy his very early breakfast in peace while it still lasts.
He eats powdered eggs, desiccated vegetables, and a pancake of compressed meat of which he decides he’d rather not know the ingredients. Even Imperial generals like Crassus eat the same rations as his men: it is good for morale, and it just happens to be cheaper too… which is even more important. Though he wishes he can eat a real breakfast for once when on campaign, Crassus appreciates the money saved for things more important, things like tanks and ammunition, of which the Empire has quite a lot.
“So…” asks a Colonel at the table through a mouthful of what should be potato, “any predictions for the upcoming battle?”
Crassus is not the kind of man to make a promise he can’t keep. With a wide grin, he replies, “Sure. We’re going to slaughter them. Simple as that.”
The other commanders eating breakfast at this ungodly hour smile with confidence. Most officers will have answered with some degree of uncertainty or leeway for error, but not Crassus – he has a reputation of blunt confidence he has to uphold.
He engages in some light conversation as he finishes his breakfast and downs a cup of ersatz coffee. To Crassus’ eternal disappointment, the Alliance still grows most of the world’s coffee beans, and the real thing is something of a luxury in the Empire – that is reason enough to hate the Allies, as far as Crassus is concerned.
Once finished, he exits the officer’s dining tent (his eyes take time to readjust to the dark, after having eaten in the tent’s bright interior) and takes a detour to his forward position through the tent city. Some soldiers had woken early and are outside their tents, playing cards, smoking, or just enjoying their last precious hours of peace. Seeing their General among them brightens their very dark early morning.
The soldiers stand up and salute in a single salvo, and Crassus replies in kind. He smiles and says lightly, “Looks like we’ll be having a good battle today.”
“Of course,” one of the soldiers – a Corporal – replies. “We don’t want to let you down, sir.”
Her companions mutter in agreement, and the Corporal continues, “Will it be like Chengdu, sir?”
“No,” General Crassus answers bluntly, to the slight shock of the soldiers around him. Then – “It’ll be better!”
The frowns on the soldiers’ faces instantly disappear to be replaced by wolfish grins. Crassus continues on his way through the camp to the cheers of his comrades – not having heard the conversation, many soldiers have no idea what the shouting is about, but since everyone else is cheering as the General made his way down the dirt path, they pitch their voices in too. By the time he reaches the edge of the camp, the entire legion is awake and busy taking down their tents, eating breakfast out of plastic packages, and donning their combat gear. They struggle into their armor vests, pick up their guns, and hustle over to rows upon rows of infantry fighting vehicles guarding the camp like so many motionless sentries.
Ahead of the light armor is the pride of the 17th Legion: the armor. The crews swarm around their steeds, competently preparing them for battle. The tanks themselves are armed and fueled, and spoiling for a fight. Their harsh lines give them the appearance of terrible predators, eager to maul and rip apart the Empire’s enemies with cruel indifference.
General Crassus greets Copenhagen with affection. He walks completely around her, admiring her steel and composite hide from all angles before climbing up to the turret and into the commander’s cupola. There is a short flagpole mounted on the turret: a battle standard in Imperial Crimson with Legio XVII embroidered in gold flaps in the cool winter monsoon winds blowing over the Himalayas from the depths of Siberia. The flag is pockmarked with bullet holes and has a few tears at the end – a true, proud veteran.
There is also a captured Alliance flag tied to Copenhagen’s rear, serving as a rudimentary mud flap. With luck, Crasses will get another one today.
The General sits with his waist out of the turret. He checks his mount’s systems on his electronic display screens, fingers tapping the clear plastic here and there – everything is operational and ready to go.
His radio beeps and he quickly puts on his headset and presses a button to receive the incoming call. There is a brief spatter of static, but soon his ears are greeted by a familiar Caledonian voice.
“General Crassus?” the minuscule headphones transmit.
“Yes, Field Marshall?” he replies into the headset. His commanding officer answers with some very good news: “You are to attack the enemy at 0400 hours this morning. Do I make myself clear?”
“Of course!” Crassus replies keenly. “Don’t worry sir, I know what I’m supposed to do. Thank you very much, Skip.”
He doesn’t get to hear Field Marshall Scipio sigh, because he had hung up to order around some other commanders. Crassus greatly respects the grand strategist, but that doesn’t stop him (and most other officers) from annoying the man with his nickname.
On that cheerful note, General Crassus calls all of his armored, infantry, and other commanders with his headset. The noise of static and eager voices comes up through the speakers. “What’s the news?” they all ask him.
“Good news,” he says, and he hears cheers from the other ends, which quickly fade away, allowing Crassus to continue. “It is now officially official. We have been ordered to slaughter some kittens at 0400 today!”
What follows reminds Crassus why he is so proud of the men (and women) he commands, his comrades in arms. His ears are filled with their ecstatic howls – fear is not a word in their vocabularies, and they are positively itching to prove their mettle again. What officer can ask for anything more?
“Those GATO bastards won’t know what hit them!” a voice Crassus recognizes as Colonel Ibrahim shouts. He is not the only one to pile the Alliance with abuse. “It’ll be just like Chengdu again, my friends,” Crassus announces to general excitement. Then, in a theatric voice, “The Emperor wishes to strike a mighty blow against our enemies – and we will be the kick to the crotch!”
Very good at eloquent speeches, Crassus is.
The officers discuss over the airwaves nothing overly important – several lengthy minutes pass before Crassus realizes that he is talking about nothing but coffee. That starts a conversation about food, and what kind restaurants will be “liberated” once Pathānkot is taken. It is quite interesting that no matter how much death and violence occurs in war, its participants always have a mysterious urge to eat out once it is over.
Four o’clock in the morning approaches unusually quickly, which must mean Crassus is having fun, if the adage is to be believed. Crassus receives his orders, and he relays those orders to move to position to his subordinates. The multitudes of tank crewmen expertly access their tanks through the rear hatch and man their mounts.
“This is it,” he mutters to himself happily. He tells the driver to start the engine – “Yes, sir!” he replies.
Copenhagen’s turbine roars to life: the most beautiful sound Crassus has heard. The power of the engine makes her vibrate ever so slightly in impatience. She exhales fumes of exhaust and makes a low purring sound like some massive cat. Crassus pats the armored turret top tenderly.
In seconds, the low valley where the 17th Legion is assembled is filled with the din of thousands of tanks and their armored cousins.
Crassus checks his watch. His eardrums have a few more precious minutes of sanity.
“Remember everyone,” he says through the headphones, “timing is everything. We cannot go too fast or advance too slowly in the opening stage – we must ride the wave of our artillery.”
“Sir, have you ever been surfing before?” an officer asks. “I think you’d be good at it.”
“No I haven’t Sanchez, but now that you mention it, I think I ought–”
Crassus doesn’t hear himself finish the sentence. At 0400 hours exactly, the artillery lets its presence be known, and in a very loud fashion. A hundred thousand guns all fire simultaneously, and their crews (who are all very deaf) eject casings and load fresh rounds with robotic precision. The artillery pumps millions of shells blasting off into the atmosphere within minutes – they travel in great arcs to be reunited with the earth in Alliance territory.
Meanwhile, battery upon battery of truck-mounted launchers like the Katyushas of old fire great volleys of rockets. The swarms of flaming lances shriek their way to the front lines, illuminating the darkness with streaks of fire and smoke.
Imperium Day firework shows simply can’t compete with this awesome display of firepower. The thought of the thousands of tonnes of explosives dropped on the Allies’ heads makes General Crassus giddy with childish excitement, though he expresses it in a more dignified manner. “Attack!” he bellows into his headset, though he isn’t exactly sure anyone actually hears him at all. “Let’s slaughter them!”
Despite the deafening thunder of the cannons and rockets, they must have heard the order, because the pack of armored predators surges ahead. Copenhagen sprints to the front, leading the charge and carrying the 17th Legion’s standard into the battle. Her turbine spins madly, making the tank throb with energy as she accelerates over the rough, uneven ground. The mechanized wave swells over the crest of a low hill, and Crassus is greeted by the most spectacular display of firepower he has ever seen, one that even the Lord Almighty and all his Angels can’t hope to match.
The sun hasn’t risen yet, but the Alliance’s front is illuminated by a blanket of constant explosions. Every second, that small piece of earth is ripped to pieces again and again, writing in agony under the flaming hail of Imperial Artillery. Also, the atmosphere is literally on fire, set alight by the millions of rockets spewing explosive gases into the air, creating a massive infernal wall of flames, greedily sucking in all the area’s oxygen to sustain itself.
The sight of thermobaric weapons used en masse never ceases to amaze General Crassus – it has such a destructive beauty to it, but he appreciates the death it delivers to the unlucky Alliance troops on the receiving end, incinerating them or sucking the air out of their lungs, over the aesthetics.
“Forward, everyone!” Crassus shouts into the headphone. “Ride the wave, and don’t get hit by either side’s shіt!”
The mass of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles race down the hill and into the fresh hell of craters and death. There are broken and charred corpses of both soldiers and tanks, scattered about the battlefield unceremoniously where they met their untimely end. Copenhagen pitches and rolls on her tracks on the freshly churned earth, so much so that Crassus is reminded of a ship in a storm.
Amazingly, though not entirely surprisingly, some Allied tanks had survived the hellish barrage, and fire at the incoming wave of Imperial armor. They do not do much: the Imperials do not stop and simply surge ahead, swarming around and annihilating the few enemy survivors.
The downpour of Imperial explosives and the wall of fire marches forward, with the huge army of tanks hot on its heels. They follow closely, but not too closely, taking advantage of the advancing covering fire. At the same time, however, the Alliance artillery fires back in a desperate gambit to halt the ravaging steel flood, constantly readjusting their aim to hit the oncoming enemy.
With their own rain of explosions in front and Alliance explosions in the rear trying to catch up, Legio XVII can only keep moving forward and forward some more.
After what feels like days but is only half an hour, the Imperials advance beyond the range of their artillery support. The rushing wall of explosions winds down and disappears entirely, and in front of General Crassus is kilometer upon kilometer, layer upon layer, of Allied defenses bristling with soldiers and guns and tanks. The Imperial armored wave crashes head on into the enemy’s new front line and a fierce melee ensues. The easy part is over.
The GATO artillery bombardment abruptly stops to avoid hitting its own troops. Now safe from the rain of flying shrapnel, thousands of Imperial soldiers pour out of their armored infantry carriers like so many angry ants out of a disturbed hill. The Empire’s soldiers fight it out against their Allied counterparts, and both sides’ tanks duel each other with their massive guns.
Crassus spots a large Alliance tank – he focuses his eyes on it, and not a second later a blinking red horizontal diamond superimposes itself on the vehicle on the General’s helmet-mounted electronic display. “Target spotted!” he shouts into his headset.
“Target identified!” the gunner inside the tank confirms. Copenhagen rotates her turret, pointing her long snout of a gun at the doomed Alliance target. With an armor piercing shell already loaded in the chamber, the massive 150 millimeter cannon fires. There is a blast of flame from the muzzle and a thunderous boom – with his head and waist fully exposed out of the commander’s cupola, General Crassus’ ears are not spared.
The depleted uranium finned javelin strikes the Alliance tank right in the turret ring with a deafening wrenching of metal that Crassus can’t hear, being more than a kilometer away and having freshly numb eardrums. Through his magnified electronic display lenses, he sees that the Alliance tank’s turret is jammed in position, but the tracks still move, struggling to aim the entire machine and its gun straight at him.
“Target disabled, fire again!” Crassus commands.
“Yes sir! Armor piercing, kinetic!”
The automatic loader inserts the requested ammunition into the gun’s breech. Without even altering her aim, Copenhagen fires a second time. Once again, the round hits the turret ring but this time pierces it, splitting the tank open slightly at the joint of the turret and hull. The ammunition inside the unfortunate GATO tank detonates, and a gout of flame spurts out of the gash created and top hatches that are irresistibly ripped off. The tank then moves no more, like a huge beast with its throat cut.
“Nice shot, Svetlana!” Crassus exclaims exuberantly to the gunner, though he doesn’t forget to praise Copenhagen, giving her another affectionate pat on the turret top.
General Crassus fights for a few more lengthy, furious seconds. The Alliance troops, tanks, and guns are well entrenched, and are frustratingly hard to knock out. Where’s our air support? he thinks angrily to himself.
As soon as the thought had entered his mind, Imperial attack helicopters swoop down upon the Allied positions from seemingly nowhere, spitting streams of gunfire and volleys of missiles and rockets. The swarms of helicopters shoot down at the hapless enemy, and they circle the battlefield like vultures. The flying crafts’ vulture personification comes not only from the way they scour the battleground, but from their very appearance as well: the drooping neck with the cockpit and downward sweeping tail, the wings slung down casually and deadly, bristling with armaments.
Soldiers on both sides call the helicopters vultures, and virtually no Imperial remembers its official name. The name bumblebee is a very distant second, due to the loud rumbling noise the double rotors stacked on top of each other, spinning in opposite directions make. Since Crassus’ hearing isn’t the best at the moment courtesy of Copenhagen’s thunderous gun, he is oblivious to the distinctive buzzing sounds – they’re still vultures, as far as he is concerned.
And they turn the unlucky Alliance troops caught underneath into carrion for the helicopter’s namesakes. But vultures are no match for raptors: a squadron of Alliance jet fighters pounces on the helicopters, and several of them come crashing to the ground, bleeding smoke and fire. The rest of the vultures scatter and maneuver close to the ground, zigzagging to throw off their pursuers. They don’t have to take evasive action for long, because a wing of Imperial fighters comes to their rescue.
Back on the ground, the Imperial armored formation pushes on, but faces harder and fiercer resistance with every increasing meter. The Alliance troops at the front fight as long as they can before being overrun, and then fall back to the next line of defense. Unfortunately, the Alliance is more willing to give up ground than they used to be – the Imperial Army had beaten that very painful lesson into them with Suez.
As the Imperial advance moves forwards, the Alliance lines retreat, smartly avoiding the possibility of a breakthrough. The two great armies might fight this running battle forever, but fortunately, the Rāvi River gets in the way. Imperial bombers had blown all of the bridges, and tens of thousands of Allied troops suddenly find themselves trapped with their backs to the river.
General Crassus finally realizes that it is morning and that the sun has risen, thanks to the beautiful clarity of the scene in front of him. The western bank of the river quickly becomes a killing field. Under overwhelming Imperial firepower, the braver enemy troops that fight to the end are all easily massacred. The kittens with less fiber try to flee across the river – hundreds of soldiers cast off their body armor and weapons and try to swim to safety. Other tanks and infantry fighting vehicles wade several meters into the waters before getting stuck or submerged.
Rows of Imperial tanks and crowds of infantry go right up to the edge of the river, eager to shoot at the fleeing enemy who cannot do anything to fight back. Copenhagen aims her muzzle at an amphibious carrier and blasts it out of the water, ripping it to pieces and sinking it. General Crassus mans the remote machine gun on top of Copenhagen’s turret. The weapon spits bullets at the struggling figures thrashing in the river water as he simply looks at them: his eyes spot a target, he presses a button to make the machine gun shoot at the same spot, and he moves on to the next target.
This is not war, General Crassus thinks to himself thoughtfully as he ruthlessly guns down the defenseless Alliance troops swimming and drowning in panic, this is killing for the fun of it…
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
The completely one-sided battle at the Rāvi River only lasts a few minutes, though a massacre is a better word for it. With all of the Imperial lighter armor being amphibious, the soldiers get back into their carriers, which splash into the river and swim across. The tanks stay behind, covering their lighter fellows with their big cannons, waiting for the engineers to arrive.
And soon enough, they do. The infantry creates a beachhead on the opposite bank of the river, allowing the plethora of bridge layers to wade into the water and extend their folding platforms.
“Let’s go!” Crassus shouts. Copenhagen rushes forward and clatters its way across one of the precarious, portable bridges. The thousands of Imperial tanks make their way across bit by bit, funneling themselves to the other side via the thin metal paths created slightly submerged in the river.
Once the Rāvi is cleared, the Imperial assault resumes with a vengeance. Emboldened by the successful total destruction of a good portion of the Alliance army defending Pathānkot, the 17th Legion fervently presses on against the demoralized enemy. Despite their huge losses, the GATO troops withdraw competently, fighting back every meter of the way. Reluctantly, General Crassus has to respect his adversaries’ discipline that had been absent in those early, happy, easy campaigns.
After hours of ruthless fighting across the churned up Indian landscape of abandoned wheat and rice fields, and rows of flattened dead fruit trees, the Imperial advance reaches the outskirts of Pathānkot itself. They soon experience the unutterable joy of fighting in an urban environment.
But Crassus isn’t worried. He has fought in steel and concrete jungles before, and is actually quite famous for it. He urges Copenhagen forward and charges straight into the maze of streets, and the 17th Legion follows.
There are Alliance soldiers on rooftops and in windows and on the streets, firing great sheets of bullets in all directions. With his head still poking out of Copenhagen’s turret, Crassus defiantly shoots back with the remote heavy machine gun and lobs grenades with the coaxial launcher. His mount points her long snout at a squat, ugly building, and the resulting explosion blasts everything inside out through the windows.
The tidal wave of tanks rumbles down the streets, flanked by infantry which swarm around the armor. The Alliance troops holed up in the city cut down many Imperial troops exposed in the streets, but the tanks swiftly retaliate by blasting apart every edifice of resistance. The vultures show up again, knocking down the bowling pins of enemy soldiers on rooftops. Other assault helicopters dodge (some unsuccessfully) streams of heavy gunfire and missiles to drop shock troops at the massive railroad switchyard to the east of the city.
The 17th Legion doesn’t venture downtown – fighting in the low-level sprawl around the city is slow and difficult enough. Instead, the Imperial advance splits in two parts heading east in northerly and southerly directions. Realizing their intentions, the Alliance troops holed up in the city center retreat to escape an almost certain encirclement.
Even at the fringes of Pathānkot, the Allied resistance begins to melt away as the enemy pulls out, conceding the city as lost. Such an opportunity will never again present itself. “Everyone, to the switchyards immediately! No stopping!” Crassus orders, hoping to close off the city before the enemy troops have a chance to escape.
Copenhagen charges down the streets, crashing through roadblocks and crushing cars scattered here and there. A few Alliance troops fighting a rear-guard action shoot at the onrushing Imperial armor, but Crassus and the column of tanks he is leading don’t pause to stop – they simply fire on the move.
After an indistinguishable length of time speeding through the streets under fire, Crassus’ armor arrives at the eastern switchyard to discover it crawling with Alliance troops and tanks, making their retreat to the southeast. Imperial heliborne troops have already made their presence known: they are fighting a furious battle against the soldiers assigned to fight to the end, to cover the rest of the army’s withdrawal.
Crassus’s tanks and mechanized infantry dive straight into the battle at the railroad switchyard. Copenhagen duels with Alliance armor hiding and striking from behind the trains and cars tossed helter-skelter over the twisted and mangled tracks. Imperial air support pays the enemy a visit, menacing the retreating columns with gunfire and rockets.
The tank to Copenhagen’s side explodes in spectacular fashion. An Alliance tank shell had ricocheted off the front glacis plate and pierced the turret ring. Like the cork in a bottle of champagne, the turret of the tank shoots skyward, doing several somersaults and scattering flaming chunks of armor in all directions.
Crassus spies the offending partly behind an overturned, wrecked locomotive, with only the turret exposed. “Target spotted, behind that train!” he yells into his headset to his own loader and every other tank commander in the vicinity.
Copenhagen’s gun spits fire and Crassus’s eardrums are blasted yet again. The shell hits the enemy tank’s thick front turret armor, which apparently does nothing at all except annoy the brute. He sees a big, bright flash from the Alliance tank’s muzzle–
BAM!
For the sixth time in Copenhagen’s very long life (for a tank), she is hit by an Alliance tank shell, but miraculously survives again. The impact makes Crassus’ teeth grind together, blinds him temporarily, and makes him wonder whether his ears will ever be the same.
Copenhagen fires a second time, hitting the enemy tank’s well-protected turret again – it will survive many more hits, but it doesn’t. An Imperial machine comes up from the side, hitting the Alliance tank in its thinner flanks, where there is no overturned locomotive to protect it.
The other half of the pincer formation soon reaches the switchyard from the opposite direction, completing the encirclement of Pathānkot city. The Alliance pitifully attempts to counterattack, but they are easily repulsed. The few unfortunate hundreds to thousands of enemy troops in the city are stuck there, with no hope of relief.
Even so, the fighting doesn’t die down for another hour. Imperial soldiers scour the area, ferreting out kittens who had barricaded themselves in buildings and the odd sniper lurking on a rooftop. Crassus’ troops take a few hundred prisoners who sensibly decide to surrender rather than fight on from their doomed, surrounded positions.
“General,” one of his commanders asks through the headset, “do we pursue the enemy?”
Crassus thinks that through for a moment. With a heavy sigh, he answers, “No. Their excuse of a counterattack failed, so we don’t have to worry about them taking this position back. But if we give chase, we’re just going to fight an endless running battle with them – better to try again tomorrow and get some rest now. We certainly earned it.”
As much as he wants to kill more Allied troops, his reasoning gets the better of him. He orders his army to defend the newly conquered Pathānkot and wait for orders.
Soon enough, they arrive. Field Marshall Scipio tells Crassus to do exactly what he had decided to do under his own initiative. “Congratulations, General,” Scipio says over the airwaves, “you did a marvelous job. We attack again tomorrow at 0800, but until then, you may do as you please.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Having sat in the rather uncomfortable commander’s seat of a tank for a good half-day, General Crassus decides to stretch his legs. He clambers out of the cupola and climbs down to the good, solid earth, and is able to see Copenhagen in full.
On her front glacis plate is a gouge where the Alliance tank shell had hit. Her metal hide is pockmarked with hundreds of flattened bullets and a few scorch marks from infantry-launched anti-tank missiles. The standard of the 17th Legion still flaps from the turret flagpole, though the Imperial Crimson flag has a good number of new bullet holes and a few tears that weren’t there before. He wonders how he had once again lived through the entire battle (with his torso sticking out of the turret!) without a scratch – Copenhagen is good luck. That’s the only explanation.
“General – would you like some coffee, sir?” Crassus hears a voice call out to him. He turns around and is greeted by the magnificent sight of soldier holding a “liberated” coffee pot in one hand and several mugs in the other. It suddenly occurs to him how hungry he really is at the moment – it is past mid-afternoon, and the last time Crassus had eaten was at 0200 hours that morning.
“Of course, Private!” the General answers earnestly. “I would kill for some real coffee right now!”
Fortunately, he doesn’t have to resort to homicide – he had already done all the killing he needed for that coffee today. The Private fills up a mug with the hot black liquid and asks Crassus if he wants milk or sugar, but he refuses: he doesn’t want to dilute the flavor of real coffee beans.
He takes four large swallows of the scalding liquid and empties the mug. Ahhh… like a little piece of heaven, Crassus thinks contentedly as he drinks. Once finished, he breathes a satisfying sigh and asks the Private, “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Private Xyston Papadopoulos, sir!” the soldier replies.
“Congratulations, Corporal, you’ve been promoted. If your commanding officer gives you any lip, let me know, alright?”
The newly promoted Corporal’s eyes go wide with excitement and his mouth erupts into a huge grin. He gives Crassus the most impressive salute he has seen and says, “Yes sir! Thank you, sir!”
“Your welcome. Now, fill me up another cup!”
General Crassus enjoys the relative peace he had earned, drinking cup after cup of deliciously real coffee. He then relieves himself for the first time all day in a switchyard lavatory. Life is good, Crassus decides.
But there is that nagging disappointment in the back of his mind. He wanted to crush the Alliance utterly at Pathānkot – he took the city brilliantly, but unfortunately, a large portion of the enemy army survived intact, though not unscathed. He will ultimately fight the survivors of today’s battle tomorrow and the day after that, and the day after that, all because he didn’t quite kill everyone in the first smashing blow.
Not like Chengdu at all, Crassus admits heavily. The next cup of real coffee he drinks has an unpleasant, bitter taste.
Bbbbbrrrrrraaaaaaapppppppppp!
“What the hell?” General Crassus exclaims after spitting out some precious coffee and looking in the direction of the sound of an Alliance assault rifle firing an entire thirty-round magazine on full automatic. He sets the half-filled mug on top of Copenhagen’s hull and scrambles up her side and into the commander’s cupola.
He doesn’t see a pretty sight. At least two dozen Imperial soldiers lie dead on the ground, all bleeding from head wounds. The solitary Alliance rifle barks again and Crassus watches appalled as more of his men are cut down with shots to the head. He fixes his eyes on where he had seen the muzzle flashing, and fires the remote turret machine gun.
It does nothing. There is a blur of black that darts from one bit of cover to the next, and after another entire magazine is fired, another thirty Imperial troops are killed. “What are you waiting for?” Crassus shouts, perhaps even fearfully, though he will never admit it. “Open fire!”
His infantry shoot wildly in all directions, firing at the slightest twitch in the shadows. Crassus’ eyes dart back and forth, trying to spot the invisible attacker. There’s a fleeting glimpse of a flash of black – he aims his head at it and fires the machine gun, but realizes after a few seconds that he had simply pulverized a piece of empty, concrete wall. Meanwhile, Copenhagen and all of her armored fellows point their guns at whatever likely cover the killer phantom might be hiding behind, and blast away with high explosive shells.
It is to no avail. More of his soldiers die, and inexplicitly some of his tanks explode. General Crassus now feels a totally unknown sensation: panic. Fighting against a totally unbeatable, unknown, and unseen enemy is–
There is a tap on Crassus’ shoulder. “WHAT?” he inquires angrily to the soldier stupid enough to interrupt him in such a strange, dire situation. He whips around and his mouth opens in surprise.
Standing on the back of Copenhagen’s turret is man he doesn’t recognize, and after a moment Crassus realizes he is wearing the opposite side’s uniform. On top of that, he has an Alliance model assault rifle slung on his back, the Legio XVII standard in his left hand, and an uncomfortably sharp bayonet in the other.
The light-brown haired Alliance soldier with dark coffee colored eyes plunges the bayonet into Crassus’s chest, leaves it in there for a brief moment, and then yanks it out. Quick as a flash, the man flings a hand grenade down the hatch and jumps off with unnatural speed, disappearing from the bleeding and dying General’s view – he dies stunned, unable to believe the reality bleeding messily from the wound in his chest and staining his already dark uniform. The grenade’s small explosion inside Copenhagen’s hull kills the other two crewmen and Crassus with a pyre of flame, but the faithful mount survives its newly late master.
With a blur of movement and perhaps even a sonic boom, Captain Jason Edwards of the GATO Alliance is gone.