playwars

Chapter 62 - War Plans

Added 2021-11-06 19:10:06 +0000 UTC

Chapter 62

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

City of Rebirth, Baroness' Castle.

"That about sums up our troop strength and defensive arrangements." Concluded Anders as he stepped back from the table and the maps of Rebirth and the mesas spread out on it. "Lady Windwrath's people have started surveying the best spots for the towers, but we haven't even started on their foundations, let alone the outer walls."

"I see..." Knight-Commander Philia nodded. "Then this will be a battle of movement, and chokepoints, not a siege."

"If they attack within the next few weeks, that will be the case. Do you believe that to be the case?" Asked Allya.

"I have every reason to believe that the Republic is massing for a full scale cross-wasteland invasion. I was handed a series of brand new intelligence reports when I boarded my ship, and they were....worrying. There are widespread reports that the Republic is laying the groundwork for an airship docking tower at Erakis, and several heavy military airships have moved their homeports to Erakis as well. Most of them are logistics ships, and officially there to enable 'wasteland search and rescue operations'."

Allya chuckled, shaking her head. Like the Republic would ever pay for something like that. Or most people for that matter. There were, what, 3 nations that had true wasteland search and rescue apparatuses? Gorromar, the Eris Empire, obviously, and the Trinity Federation, but the latter was mostly because there was a wasteland right in the middle of their territory, and thus a lot of their shortest internal trade routes came through a wasteland whose accesses they completely controlled. A bit hard not to justify at least a token effort under those conditions, especially when their entire economy hung in the balance.

"Like that's every going to happen." Said the baroness as she voiced her thoughts. "What's your assessment knight-commander?"

"I believe the Republic will take at least a few more months to be truly ready for a full scale invasion. If nothing else, Darthar's defenses are formidable and holding Rebirth will be impossible without taking Darthar as well." Allya winced, that was cold comfort for her, as she's probably be dead or in exile either way, but if it slowed down the other side she was all for it. "But I do believe they will at least engineer some form of 'border incident' as a probing attack. However corrupt their civilian leadership is, we have to remember that the ERA's officers aren't stupid, and despite having had to rebuild their military from the ground up, they'd had constant skirmishes and similar 'border incidents' with the Far Reach and the Tark Hegemony for 15 years to whet their edge."

"Fair enough. Does anyone has any ideas?"

"My family has had...accidents with the Elkisians and their army for centuries." Said Willard as he leaned over the table, contemplating the map thoughtfully. "Right now? It all depends on who orders the attack. You have to remember that the Patriarchs and Matriachs, for all that they do not officially lead the army, will still wield considerable influence, and might order the attack before the military's own leadership can. If it was an ERA general organizing the attack, without political interference? I'd say an air raid. Several ships, as light as fast as possible, coming in low. Once they arrive, they'll head directly for our warehouses and any target of opportunity like docked ships, set them on fire, bomb them with spells, and immediately leave." He shrugged. "They know they can't fight our heavy ships without getting into a prolonged slugging match, which would be the exactly opposite of what they'd want."

"A very good point master Willard." Said Allya as she suppressed a shiver. Dealing with such tactics would be a nightmare. "And if the strike was ordered by the civilians?"

"In that case...in that case I'd say mercenaries. The Patriarchs and Matriarchs are always fond of at least the appearance of plausible deniability. They always think they'll be able to negotiate and politic their way out of it, worst comes to worst. That won't always work, like with Tark, but they'll try anyway." Willard sighed. "The problem is that they aren't militarily competent. That means that they might just try for a prolonged engagement, or just not realize such an attack will entail one. The ERA? They'll come in hard and fast, but they'll get out of dodge as quickly as they physically can. They know any long fight will create a far bigger incident than they want, and that we can bring in reinforcements to absolutely smash any raiding force, push comes to shove. The Patriarchs and Matriarchs won't know that. Worst, they're starting to distrust their army so much -rightfully so, given how much they hate their guts- that they might not even listen to their own officers."

"So, what do you think?"

"...I think mercenaries. The attempt to steal Crystal has the Patriarchs and Matriarchs' fingerprints all over it, and if they'd failed on that, I think they'll try to take a stab at us, if only to prove to their own colleagues that they weren't complete incompetents. They're corrupt, but their senate is a fucking snake pit, the idiot that has sanctioned the theft attempt has to be feeling the pressure right now."

Everyone around the table nodded. Pyn and Anders might not be politicians, but they understood weakness and opportunism well enough, and, well, Philia was a knight-commander in a country where high ranking officers were as much political entities as actual combat commanders, due to the feudal nature of the Kingdom.

"Well, we better start preparing for that then. Worst comes to worst, and the air raid does happen, we have your tesla tower." Said Allya as she nodded towards Willard. "Until we have elements to point towards the other direction, I propose we start preparing for a ground raid. If nothing else the drills will make for good training for our troops to integrate and work together." Coalition warfare was always a nightmare, although in this case she was only trying to have glorified cops, a private noble's military and professional royal soldiers work together, not different nations.

"I agree." Said Philia.

"So do I." Followed Anders.

"And I." Said Willard.

Everyone turned to Pyn, who shrugged.

"I'm no military officer, but it makes sense to me as well."

"Right, unanimity then." Finished Allya. "Already then, all of you get back to your troops and spread the word around that there will be some large scale exercises soon. Then meet me tomorrow at, say, noon, and we'll have a working lunch to hash out the basics."

A chorus of 'yes milady!' answered here, and Allya nodded, before letting everyone filter out of the room, except Pyn, who she gestured towards the hallway leading to their offices.

Allya waited until they'd walked into her office, and the sound proofing enchantment was safely on, before sitting down on her desk with a sigh.

"Well you look tired." Said Pyn as she sat next to her girlfriend, and put her arm on Allya's shoulders.

"No kidding. I was a bit worried Philia was going to try to override Anders and Willard honestly, and just take over."

"Well...I mean, the Asarian Kingdom is kind of like the Confederacy, right? For my home, every member state donates a certain number of troops, usually as whole units, and here it's the nobles that give troops to the crown, right? Then she'd have some experience at least coordinating with different units."

"Fair enough, although from what I'm given to understand, the royal units usually operate on a different command structure during wars." Allya smiled. "Apparently our monarchs don't exactly trust their nobles not to send their private army on suicide missions or use them as expendable meat shields."

Pyn chuckled.

"I can understand the sentiment. So, what now?"

"Now, well, we get started on those plans. And you start putting those siege engineers to work."

"Oh they already are. They put the roofs on their new barracks in record time, and they're already talking about building redoubts between the mesas, whatever those are."

"They're field defensive positions, which is...actually very smart when I think about it. Actually, find the leader of those engineers. Hand him over all of our city plans." Allya held up her hands. "I know, the rest of the council will have a fit, but while that engineer's probably no civilian architect, he must know fortified cities layout like the back of his hand, we'll need his advice."

"Fair enough. I'll see to it. Anything else?"

Allya smiled.

"Well, I'd love to do all sorts of things on this desk..." She waggled her eyebrows suggestively, causing Pyn to blush slightly, before sighing. "But unfortunately, we have work to do. In my case, that endless pile of paperwork." She gestured at the small, but apparently endless stack of papers on the corner of her desk.

"Of course." Pyn bent to the side, and kissed her girlfriend on the cheek. "Well, I'll leave you to it then. I'll get the plans from my office right now, and hand them to the engineers when I can, but no guarantees for today." The elf winced. "There are some issues with the new houses, and my head geomancer wants to see me ASAP."

"Well, got then! Shoo! Shoo!"

Pyn giggled, and left the room, causing Allya to sigh, and then look at the stack of papers on her desk.

Even with a fair amount of subordinates to palm stuff off to, there was still too many things to asked for her immediate attention. She really needed a Jurgen, or hell, a normal secretary would do.

She made a mental note about it, and pulled the first paper from the top of the stack.

*****

Alexandra watched attentively as the ranger entered her dungeon. Right on time...and with the pouch of ingredients, as planned.

The party was fairly standard, what looked like a heavily armored fighter, a mage, a ranger, and some kind of healer, although strangely enough this one was a close combat equipped elf. And the mage was so short they could only be a dwarf, not counting the massive beard. His staff was so massively taller than he was it was quite comical. The ranger, mage and healer were all steel ranked, but the fighter was copper ranked for some reason. That was slightly odd, in her experience the dungeon delving parties were usually pretty homogenous in ranks.

The party stopped at the quest board in the entrance hall, like virtually everyone now, and proceeded into the hall of valor. Hall where she'd added a single statue, that of the punladdin with half a dozen javelins stuck into his back, face first on the ground. It wasn't...very good, but the plaque under it more than made up in information what her artistic talents couldn't convey.

Besides, the statue had gotten Emilia to relax a bit on decoration, although she was still being pushy on it from time to time. Unfortunately, due to that ever so deadly pout of her, Alexandra couldn't just dodge out of it every time.

Plus, CQ had found the statue absolutely hilarious, and had even kept the paladin's helmet as some sort of personal trophy, hidden in a special alcove of her boss room.

Which reminded Alexandra that they'd need to make CQ a room, if only to store things she didn't want lost when she fell, without having to just slap expensive and finicky teleportation runes or enchantments on everything.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

"So, he's finally here?" Asked Emilia as she took the now cushioned stool next to Alexandra, and the Earth-born nodded. The cushions were a nice addition, and even Alexandra could feel the difference, although her armor protected her from the worst of just sitting on cold stone, and Emilia was, well...a vampire, which meant she could probably walk through a fire relatively intact. What was more surprising was that an adventurer had been moving around with their own personal cushion, for some reason. "That's good."

Alexandra sighed.

"Vampy, look...I know you're not very easy with the deal, but what's done is done. Besides, we really need the steel."

Emilia sighed, then nodded.

"Fair enough Alex, I'm just...worried for you. I know the UDC is coming, and I don't want them to sanction you."

Alexandra smiled softly.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." He smile grew into an impish grin. "You should have seen the kind of stuff I got away with back on Earth!"

Emilia chuckled.

"What, did you steal a warship?"

"No, but...close enough. I'll tell you someday."

"Riiight. And totally not because you're trying to embellish it in the meantime!"

"No! Okay, maybe a little..."

Emilia laughed out loud, and Alexandra joined her. Conversation successfully defused!