Operation Catherine [closed, Vorindun, LG, Unilisia]

[Libertarian Governance]

Littoral Combat Ships closed on the enemy shore positions pounding away with their rapid fire deck guns as scores of air cushioned landing craft swarm the enemy beaches. Each landing craft hit the beach fast, often moving through enemy lines to disgorge their troops and vehicles behind automatic grenade launchers them. Each landing craft bristled with mini-guns and some had anti-tank rocket turrets. All put their weapons to effective use as two LGDF combined arms divisions hit the enemy beach.

Overhead, their were Jinn II drones flying high and providing real time video of the battlefield while occasionally directing fire on enemy positions or troop concentrations. The cruise missiles were striking deeper now, striking around the city itself and as far away as Sabinum and Pertinax. The missiles now joined with stealthy Tigershark cruise missiles and spotted by planes and drones in the air as well as special forces on the ground.

Over the enemy positions two new beast took over the close air support role. Chimera ATF using missiles and bombs while Archangel gunships bristling with weaponry pounded the enemy army mercilessly. Transport helicopters, their door gunners blasting away and their rockets ripple firing into enemy positions moved to the enemy rear to cut off any escape. Landing T.A.R.G.A. heavy infantry that swiftly dug in and laid down murderously accurate fire.

Roger, I am 30 seconds out with a whole world of white phosphorous. Mark target with smoke.

The Lieutenant nodded to a Corporal who raised his case-less AWS rifle and popped one of the metalstorm grenades into the distance. It impacted several hundred meters away sending red smoke rising into the air. To their right and to their left a squad of soldiers laid down burst of automatic fire into the distance. Further away on their right flank a Katana tank ripped off a 140mm round as its coaxial and turret machine guns fired into the distance.

Target is marked.

Roger got it. Get down.

The squads fire suddenly stopped as soldiers went to the deck. A single Chimera sped over the beach so low you could almost reach up and touch it. Then the tailless plane shot higher and higher corkscrewing in the air as four bombs fell from their internal bombays spinning end over end before exploding in a river of fire and destruction.

[Olwean Renaissance]

"My recommendations are simple. Show no mercy to the slavers. These youths are so thoroughly corrupted and indoctrinated that, even if they run and hide somewhere, they will eventually screw up their courage, regroup, and form a guerrilla resistance to you, your allies, and the lawful government of the Vorindun. They're convinced of the righteousness of their cause, and they will require serious deprogramming before they can be loyal citizens to the Kaiser's Vorindun. These might seem like green youths, but they are also Ostrogoths, descendants of the people who defeated Odoacer and conquered Italy. It is time for ruthless measures, to put an end to the slaver movement in the Vorindun, once and for all. The entire Fatherland Front leadership and much of its membership should be annihilated," Severina just hoped that her words didn't seem too harsh, but the truth hurt at times.

"As for the camps, don't expect much of a resistance by most of the slaves to the slavers, as they are malnourished and weak. Only a few of them will be strong enough, so be prepared to give them food and medical care to recover."

[The Vorindun]

There were now only a small scattering of cowering Imperial Youth, hiding as best as they could from the enemy. Gradually, however, as the fighting ended and the smoke cleared, they put up their hands and left the shelter.

"We surrender. Don't harm us!" one of the officers, smelling of piss and other bodily functions through his sweat-soaked uniform, shouted at the foe.

They naturally expected to be spared.

[The Vorindun]

There wasn't much resistance from the shell-shocked Vorindun defenders, not at first. It took them a while to realize what was happening, as so much firepower was more than they had ever seen. Not at Lehman Beach, nor during the Dekerin War of Liberation, nor during the recent civil wars, of which this was just the most recent. The white flags came up from various legionary commanders, who saw no point in foolishly wasting the lives of their men for a regime that started this damn war and was about to lose it. After all, what was at stake? Independence? No, of course not! The rule of a small cadre of fanatics vs. the rule of the son of the man to whom they had sworn fealty. Hardly a reason to get all of their men killed along with themselves.

And, so the beginning of the end....in a nation which no longer believed in the Revolution, if it ever did, the soldiers defending the coast simply ceased fire and asked for terms of surrender through Morse code.

Of course, there were some brass who objected, but they were detained or shot in some cases. Some were even fragged.

[Allanea]

The Allaneans understood the implications of the surrender rapidly. They offered the enemy a very simple choice:

You will either swear loyalty to your lawful ruler, and fight under his banner against the slaver menace, or you will be placed into prisoner of war camps. Your choice.

[Unilisia]

There were now only a small scattering of cowering Imperial Youth, hiding as best as they could from the enemy. Gradually, however, as the fighting ended and the smoke cleared, they put up their hands and left the shelter.

"We surrender. Don't harm us!" one of the officers, smelling of piss and other bodily functions through his sweat-soaked uniform, shouted at the foe.

They naturally expected to be spared.

The Commandant walked towards the surrendering soldier, lifting him by the nape of his neck with one hand and looking into his eyes.

"If your commander is alive, bring him to me. Tell him that Voryx wants a word with him." He dropped the child officer to the ground, looking down from his high vantage point, then looked at the rest of the Imperial Youth survivors as they were rounded up by Sanguinis Guards.

"As for the rest of you... it's simple. You're coming with us. You've lost the war."

[Libertarian Governance]

What the hell is this? Is this a joke? Shouted Lance Corporal Meir as the enemy army begin to surrender. He looked back at his squad leader with his weapon still pointed towards the enemy.

Seems they had enough. Round them up!

The LGDF guns fell silent as the soldiers moved to take the surrendering troops into custody. It took some time for the LGDF to separate the enemy soldiers from their weaponry and secure them in several areas of the beach. Ringed by tanks and armor and troops with gunships hovering overhead a lone Phoenix Strike commando walked into the midst of the enemy force. He climbed on to a Panther MICV surrounded by a small cadre of LGDF and he begin to speak with a bullhorn.

Listen up. Under the Crimes Against Humanity Acts any person who provides material support to any person, organization or nation engaged in the practices of any crime against humanity shall themselves be guilty of conspiracy to commit a crime against humanity. The punishment for such a conviction is death. If you were in Libertarian Governance that death would come at the end of a rope. As you are here...that death will likely come by firing squad.

Crimes against humanity are classified as a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack and includes murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or forcible transfer, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, acts of persecution, and anything of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

Being as the former regime you served were guilty of pretty much everything I have just spoke of, you all will likely be found guilty by a swift and just military trial and die. Or, you can make a choice. You can choose to support the Imperial Government of Vorindun, go over there and take up your arms and come with us as we liberate the rest of this nation. The choice is yours.

This is your one chance at redemption. Now, I need to speak to your commanding officer. You will come with me and transmit this offer to your troops throughout the country. Their choice is wait for us to capture them, in which case they will die. Or they can right now turn their weapons on the slave regime and cooperate with the allied force. Come with me now.

[The Vorindun]

The Allaneans understood the implications of the surrender rapidly. They offered the enemy a very simple choice:

You will either swear loyalty to your lawful ruler, and fight under his banner against the slaver menace, or you will be placed into prisoner of war camps. Your choice.

Those Imperial Youth facing the Allaneans all did as told, though they also stammered as they took the new oath of allegiance. They trembled with terror, torn between fear for their bodies and fear for their souls. The bishops taught that renouncing the Front was a mortal sin of disobedience and would mean damnation, but that was much harder to prove when it counted, to a small remnant of surviving teenage soldiers.

When it was done, the boys had a haggard look of absolute exhaustion on their faces, is if they had indeed lost their souls, had them sucked out of their bodies and were now mere shells of themselves.

[The Vorindun]

There were now only a small scattering of cowering Imperial Youth, hiding as best as they could from the enemy. Gradually, however, as the fighting ended and the smoke cleared, they put up their hands and left the shelter.

"We surrender. Don't harm us!" one of the officers, smelling of piss and other bodily functions through his sweat-soaked uniform, shouted at the foe.

They naturally expected to be spared.

The Commandant walked towards the surrendering soldier, lifting him by the nape of his neck with one hand and looking into his eyes.

"If your commander is alive, bring him to me. Tell him that Voryx wants a word with him." He dropped the child officer to the ground, looking down from his high vantage point, then looked at the rest of the Imperial Youth survivors as they were rounded up by Sanguinis Guards.

"As for the rest of you... it's simple. You're coming with us. You've lost the war."

Company Leader Nevitta Arbetio realized quickly how many were dead, and judging from where the man had been....he could not be alive. He was dead, either in Heaven or in Hell. Probably the former, due to his zeal for God and Country. Did they not fight for the forces of good against the wicked? These heathen would pay for this, but if so, why had they lost? This created a moment of panic and anxiety, as it occurred to him that he might actually have been wrong.

"Sir, I am now the senior officer alive. My superiors are all dead. Is the war really over, already? What's to become of us?"

His prior courage to stand and fight was gone, as he now realized that he was a captive of the hated and feared Unilisians, along with his men. He had heard stories, many of them reinforced by the State propaganda machine. Unilisians were portrayed as demons from Hell itself. Of course, the drawback of such rhetoric was the sheer panic created by this "Satanic' enemy, now that he had lost to them......

[Unilisia]

Company Leader Nevitta Arbetio realized quickly how many were dead, and judging from where the man had been....he could not be alive. He was dead, either in Heaven or in Hell. Probably the former, due to his zeal for God and Country. Did they not fight for the forces of good against the wicked? These heathen would pay for this, but if so, why had they lost? This created a moment of panic and anxiety, as it occurred to him that he might actually have been wrong.

"Sir, I am now the senior officer alive. My superiors are all dead. Is the war really over, already? What's to become of us?"

His prior courage to stand and fight was gone, as he now realized that he was a captive of the hated and feared Unilisians, along with his men. He had heard stories, many of them reinforced by the State propaganda machine. Unilisians were portrayed as demons from Hell itself. Of course, the drawback of such rhetoric was the sheer panic created by this "Satanic' enemy, now that he had lost to them......

"Several of our packs will lead your soldiers to the beaches for removal from the combat area. Rest assured they will be kept safe. As for you..." Voryx patted him on the head with his rough leather glove, small metal nubs along its palm piece, gently caressing his scalp in the way one would massage a pet.

"You, well, as a man of prestige, will be coming with me personally."

[The Vorindun]

In spite of their surrender, few of the men on the beach were without honor. They simply lacked any real loyalty to the State. They were willing to fight and die for the Fatherland, but not for the Fatherland Front, and certainly not for slavery. What good was slavery to them, anyway? It hadn't turned out like the old form, where poorer Vorindun owned slaves as well....those days were over. This was State-run, institutionalized, totalitarian gulag slavery, which profited the regime and the major corporations, but not the ordinary Vorindun. Even the Ostrogoths among the legionaries saw no point to fighting for the power and privilege of the few.

For the Kaiser, however......well, most of them still felt loyalty to the House of Handelhoff, and they had sworn fealty to this young man's father. Oaths sacred to God (or Gods, in the case of the Romans)....oaths which they could now keep, fighting with honor for a free Vorindun.

Simply put, the decision was easy. The sooner the Front was defeated, the better. Besides, for surrendering, they were already under an automatic death sentence, pronounced by the puppet Senate against all who dared to yield to the foe. Their fate was sealed.

In droves, they rushed over to pick up their old weapons and gear, led by their prefects, legates, tribunes, and centurions. They could once more march under the Eagles, the standards of the Fatherland, as soldiers of the Vorindun, of God and the Kaiser.

En masse, they stood and swore new oaths of allegiance to the Kaiser and the Fatherland, the Romans swearing to their ancient Gods and the Goths and Germans to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Of course, the latter two generally disagreed on the Trinity, but they still all believed in Christ and swore to Him.

There, on the beach, thousands upon thousands of Vorindun found a new cause and new purpose, a new reason to fight. Against slavery and for the Kaiser.....not a hard sell at all.

At the end, the whole massed host of recently beaten troops shouted until hoarse....

The Goths and Romans shouted, "Ave, Caesar!"

The Germans bellowed, "Heil, Kaiser!"

Both phrases meant "Hail, Caesar (or Kaiser, in German)!"

Both were repeated with an ear-piercing fervor.....

[Allanea]

At the beach

The Allaneans looked upon happily as the former slaver troops armed themselves anew. They were still ready for any form of treachery, of course, but they already had a plan. They had communicated this to the Kaiser:

Your Majesty. We have assembled a force of former traitors who have happily – given the circumstances – sworn allegiance to you anew. We believe that the proper way to verify their loyalty in combat is to utilize them as penal units, deploying them at the most dangerous areas of the front. This will punish their old transgressions as well as give them a chance to once more redeem themselves as human beings and as servants of the Crown.

Headquarters of Army General Elros Thanafiel

“This is as we intend to do, Severina. The slaver is not a human being, and he deserves no mercy.” - the elf stood up. - “We have the proper tools and we have the men to free the elves, and we have our allies to assist us.”

He paused. - “Severina, have no fear. Not only are my men well-trained and dedicated to the cause of freedom, but we have a powerful ally in this struggle. Far beyond the ocean lies the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar. It is an elf nation entirely unlike your Olwean Renaissance – rather, it is a military superpower of immense might, where elf-kin and their friends live without fear, walking not as fearful slaves but as masters of their own land.”

“Their ruler, Lady Sirithil nos Feanor has among her titles that of Lady-Protector of Elvenkind. She will not tolerate her kin being oppressed. Trust me, Severina. Very soon, it will not be my kin in Vorindun who feel despair. It will be the slavers who despair and fear.”

With that, the general spoke in a slightly different tone, as if addressing someone entirely different: “Computer, save video recording as severina dot emm-kay-vee. Attach this to an e-mail to the offices of the Menelmacari Prefect of War. Priority: Ultima. Subject: all-capitals, ELF SLAVES. Send.”

In Allanea

They had already been poised to strike. Now the spring was released. Hundreds of men in digital camouflage uniforms ran towards their aircraft – regular planes and gigantic atomic cargo lifters of various kinds. They were the same 2nd New Podolsk Airborne Division that had fought alongside the elves in Iesus Christi. With them are several companies of PLU troops, strategic bombers, refueling planes and other craft

Later, when they pass over the Allanean fleet, fighters will take off to support them, decoys will be launched by the hundreds to confuse the enemy, jammers will be turned on, and dozens of cruise missiles will be launched at the surviving enemy RADAR sites.

The time has come.

[Ralkovia]

(I'm going to assume that Isaac Shimmel, my diplomat, would be meeting with some of your leaders at this point Vorindun.)

Isaac watched, his face void of all emotions. He had been sent here to negotiate a military alliance with the Vorindians. Then right as the deal would have gone through, the regime suffered a military coup, switching itself over to a Nazi government. While it was true it had only lasted for a short time period, Raskov had wiped his hands, not wanting to deal with them any longer. Then, the Allaneans came, descending like a pack of wild monkeys, throwing their proverbial 'shit' all over the place.

The government didn't even have a semblance of control anymore, Ralkovian reports had already stated that fact from the very beginning. A propped up government built on the backs of unloyal servants lasted only as long as outside pressure didn't exist. Ralkovia was now facing a total loss scenario, losing a potential ally and slave state meant that the Ralkovians were truly going to be alone in the World. For as long as other slave states existed, Ralkovia had its own line of defense. Picking and choosing which battles it would join and fight in. Now it was all gone. Somewhere in the Raskovian enforced isolation, the Allaneans and other anti-slavers had cut down dozens of slave states.

Ralkovia would not throw away slavery and Ralkovia would not leave Vorindun without at least securing some sort of future. Isaac turned to face a few of the Vorindians behind them. If they felt fear, it was hidden behind blank faces. He only nodded his head, the same way a father might when he found out his son had broken some family memento. Sad and disappointing.

"Your country is lost, your soldiers will surrender, and your all going to hang at the end of an Allanean rope," Shimmel said, still staring at each man's face, waiting for a reaction. "However, Ralkovia still remains. It's land still as strong as ever. It's people still loyal and loving to its eternal leader, Emperor Raskov. The land I return to still has hope, something that you and your kind have none of. Governments come and go, people disappear, die, and fade away into the history books. Your chapter in the history books will be little more than a page. A page that condemns your names, forever spitting on your corpses. You'll be buried in a potter's field. Not even a plaque to let others remember. The actions that you took, shitted on and made villainous. Ralkovia, Ralkovia has never faced that. Each Emperor's name immortalized and remembered for eternity. From Aaron the First to Zion the Eighth. All seven millenia of our history recorded. When you die, so does your history. However, what I offer is a greater return. Guaranteed safety, guaranteed security, and a chance to make sure that those filthy moralist do not have a chance to enslave and rape your children and then convince them that the Vorindun were the wrong ones. So then...I ask a simple question...who will remain here to be cornered like rats and hung out for slaughter? and who will come with me?"

Isaac simply watched, watched the Vorindun men and silently judged.

[Libertarian Governance]

With the surrender of the enemy soldiers, Sabinum and Pertinax were quickly secured. Bureau 24 commandos and Medusa units fanned out across the area looking for those slavers, police, government officials who hadn't had the good sense to give up when the chance was offered. The men and women now hunting these thugs were not interested in prisoners but came to exact vengeance.

Combat engineers worked furiously to put together four aluminum runways for the cargo jets even now on their way to the city from Libertarian Governance. Jets carrying troops, equipment and relief supplies. While they worked the two divisions prepared to move deeper into the country. They formed their line facing Sicula and Saint-Paul, the next targets on the Free Republic's list. As they did carrier based aircraft and those from Flavium staged strikes against enemy positions around Sicula and Saint-Paul.

The Bureau 24 commando who had spoken to the enemy troops on the beach now met with LGDF officers and the officers of the former enemy. The meeting was in a tent along one of the firebases established by the troops on the outskirts of Sabinum. The interior was filled with computers and video monitors showing satellite maps of the enemy held area along with occasional video streams from aircraft gun cameras and those of guided weaponry.

Now, I am going to need a few more of your soldiers to guard the cities here. Keep the people calm, assure them that food and supplies are on the way. I will also need your troops to help in the effort to find any regime loyalist, slavers and their kind. Any person who provides information leading to the freedom of any slave will be paid a bounty of twenty five hundred Gold Coin. Any person providing information leading to the death of a slaver or other regime loyalist will be provided twenty five hundred Gold Coin. Make sure your troops get the word out.

As for the attack on the Sicula and Saint-Paul, the one eighteenth will form the center of our assault. Your men will form to the right and the left with a small contingent clearing out any anti-tank weapons as the mechanized unit advances. The one thirty secondth will strike along their right flank.

We will have ample air support for the destruction of these scumbags. To insure coordination I will embed one of my agents with each of your officers. They will handle the close air support duties and make sure we can communicate effectively. We will attack in one day.

[The Vorindun]

[quote="Allanea";p="10288254"]At the beach

The Allaneans looked upon happily as the former slaver troops armed themselves anew. They were still ready for any form of treachery, of course, but they already had a plan. They had communicated this to the Kaiser:

Your Majesty. We have assembled a force of former traitors who have happily – given the circumstances – sworn allegiance to you anew. We believe that the proper way to verify their loyalty in combat is to utilize them as penal units, deploying them at the most dangerous areas of the front. This will punish their old transgressions as well as give them a chance to once more redeem themselves as human beings and as servants of the Crown.

Thank you for your diligence in this matter. Be assured that we are most pleased at this development. You have our utmost confidence in this operation and we look forward to the conclusion of this campaign in short order. By all means give them the chance to avenge our father and redeem themselves.

As for any who persist in their treason, we wash our hands of them. Do with them as you will.

His Imperial Majesty, Karl I, Kaiser of the Vorindun

[The Vorindun]

(I'm going to assume that Isaac Shimmel, my diplomat, would be meeting with some of your leaders at this point Vorindun.)

Isaac watched, his face void of all emotions. He had been sent here to negotiate a military alliance with the Vorindians. Then right as the deal would have gone through, the regime suffered a military coup, switching itself over to a Nazi government. While it was true it had only lasted for a short time period, Raskov had wiped his hands, not wanting to deal with them any longer. Then, the Allaneans came, descending like a pack of wild monkeys, throwing their proverbial 'shit' all over the place.

The government didn't even have a semblance of control anymore, Ralkovian reports had already stated that fact from the very beginning. A propped up government built on the backs of unloyal servants lasted only as long as outside pressure didn't exist. Ralkovia was now facing a total loss scenario, losing a potential ally and slave state meant that the Ralkovians were truly going to be alone in the World. For as long as other slave states existed, Ralkovia had its own line of defense. Picking and choosing which battles it would join and fight in. Now it was all gone. Somewhere in the Raskovian enforced isolation, the Allaneans and other anti-slavers had cut down dozens of slave states.

Ralkovia would not throw away slavery and Ralkovia would not leave Vorindun without at least securing some sort of future. Isaac turned to face a few of the Vorindians behind them. If they felt fear, it was hidden behind blank faces. He only nodded his head, the same way a father might when he found out his son had broken some family memento. Sad and disappointing.

"Your country is lost, your soldiers will surrender, and your all going to hang at the end of an Allanean rope," Shimmel said, still staring at each man's face, waiting for a reaction. "However, Ralkovia still remains. It's land still as strong as ever. It's people still loyal and loving to its eternal leader, Emperor Raskov. The land I return to still has hope, something that you and your kind have none of. Governments come and go, people disappear, die, and fade away into the history books. Your chapter in the history books will be little more than a page. A page that condemns your names, forever spitting on your corpses. You'll be buried in a potter's field. Not even a plaque to let others remember. The actions that you took, shitted on and made villainous. Ralkovia, Ralkovia has never faced that. Each Emperor's name immortalized and remembered for eternity. From Aaron the First to Zion the Eighth. All seven millenia of our history recorded. When you die, so does your history. However, what I offer is a greater return. Guaranteed safety, guaranteed security, and a chance to make sure that those filthy moralist do not have a chance to enslave and rape your children and then convince them that the Vorindun were the wrong ones. So then...I ask a simple question...who will remain here to be cornered like rats and hung out for slaughter? and who will come with me?"

Isaac simply watched, watched the Vorindun men and silently judged.

Ursulus Desiderius shrugged and finally said, "Why not? We're screwed anyway, if we stay here. I am in no mood to commit suicide or be dragged through the streets and hanged by meat hooks. So be it. I choose to defect."

"Deserting us? You coward!" Marinus himself thundered.

"Fool!"

The argument continued, but many fled with Ursulus. The rest stayed behind to face their doom. The camp had divided again, and the Vorindun were even weaker now. The handwriting was on the wall.....the end was at hand.

"Will we need to renounce our Vorindun citizenship?" Ursulus asked pointedly.

[The Vorindun]

With the surrender of the enemy soldiers, Sabinum and Pertinax were quickly secured. Bureau 24 commandos and Medusa units fanned out across the area looking for those slavers, police, government officials who hadn't had the good sense to give up when the chance was offered. The men and women now hunting these thugs were not interested in prisoners but came to exact vengeance.

Combat engineers worked furiously to put together four aluminum runways for the cargo jets even now on their way to the city from Libertarian Governance. Jets carrying troops, equipment and relief supplies. While they worked the two divisions prepared to move deeper into the country. They formed their line facing Sicula and Saint-Paul, the next targets on the Free Republic's list. As they did carrier based aircraft and those from Flavium staged strikes against enemy positions around Sicula and Saint-Paul.

The Bureau 24 commando who had spoken to the enemy troops on the beach now met with LGDF officers and the officers of the former enemy. The meeting was in a tent along one of the firebases established by the troops on the outskirts of Sabinum. The interior was filled with computers and video monitors showing satellite maps of the enemy held area along with occasional video streams from aircraft gun cameras and those of guided weaponry.

Now, I am going to need a few more of your soldiers to guard the cities here. Keep the people calm, assure them that food and supplies are on the way. I will also need your troops to help in the effort to find any regime loyalist, slavers and their kind. Any person who provides information leading to the freedom of any slave will be paid a bounty of twenty five hundred Gold Coin. Any person providing information leading to the death of a slaver or other regime loyalist will be provided twenty five hundred Gold Coin. Make sure your troops get the word out.

As for the attack on the Sicula and Saint-Paul, the one eighteenth will form the center of our assault. Your men will form to the right and the left with a small contingent clearing out any anti-tank weapons as the mechanized unit advances. The one thirty secondth will strike along their right flank.

We will have ample air support for the destruction of these scumbags. To insure coordination I will embed one of my agents with each of your officers. They will handle the close air support duties and make sure we can communicate effectively. We will attack in one day.

The Vorindun Imperial commanders all nodded and agreed to do their bit. It would be a lot of work, but they would guard the flanks and help garrison the towns.

"It is time to finish this war, once and for all, kameraden," said Legate Gerhard von Kuhle of Legion IV.

The others smiled at this.

"I'm glad to have a chance to fight those pricks. They have ruined our country and must pay for it. You will not find much real sympathy for the Fatherland Front here. Sicula and Saint-Paul, yes. But not in Sabinum and Pertinax. Too many Germans and Romans for that. Even plenty of Ostrogoths like me have issues with the regime," added Petronius Felix, son of former Imperial consul Lucian Felix and Legate in command of Legio VIII.

"Yeah, we're happy to switch teams now....Damn those slavers. They can rot in Hell for all I care. The Kaiser is here and that changes everything. We've always preferred the Handelhoffs," XIV Legio Legate Constans Ricimer noted.

The Kaiser always did have their loyalty, deep down.....

[Ralkovia]

"No need too. However, you are about to receive dual citizenship to our glorious nation for the purposes of this trip," Isaac said, looking to one of the Death Guard, who carried with him a small notebook. "We'll be doing this on the fly however, so you'll need to start walking."

The Death Guard began to read from the book, first in Raljovkavak, the language of the Royal Family and Nobles. Menacingly harsh sounding words, hateful and despicable in their sounds. "Kravakov Kovvakwagga, Kremester, krushaka Avakchattore."

The sounds flowed naturally out of the harsh mouth of Ralkovian Death Guard as he moved with the group. Pausing for a few seconds, before continuing. This time the language seemed softer, less guttural then before. That would be recognized as Rajkova, the language of the Ralkovian Commoners. After he finished speaking, he paused again, before finally reading it in English.

"In my personage, for eternal times, I hold the Emperor of Ralkovia as the ruler of Ralkovia. His body is the state, his soul, the people. We accept his strength and worship it as our own. We relinquish our claim to the ignorance of our life. He who is master, we recognize. We who love him, hold him close. His ideology perfect, his body a sanctuary, his heart the key to the Heavens. We forever fall beholden to his requests, knowing that he knows the future and the will of G-d. I hereby humbly recognize the Emperor of Ralkovia as my leader," the Death Guard said, finishing his words up.

Already the Ralkovians were getting ready to leave Vorindun. Soon they would return to the Homeland, where an Emperor was waiting with a smile on his face.

[The Vorindun]

"No need too. However, you are about to receive dual citizenship to our glorious nation for the purposes of this trip," Isaac said, looking to one of the Death Guard, who carried with him a small notebook. "We'll be doing this on the fly however, so you'll need to start walking."

The Death Guard began to read from the book, first in Raljovkavak, the language of the Royal Family and Nobles. Menacingly harsh sounding words, hateful and despicable in their sounds. "Kravakov Kovvakwagga, Kremester, krushaka Avakchattore."

The sounds flowed naturally out of the harsh mouth of Ralkovian Death Guard as he moved with the group. Pausing for a few seconds, before continuing. This time the language seemed softer, less guttural then before. That would be recognized as Rajkova, the language of the Ralkovian Commoners. After he finished speaking, he paused again, before finally reading it in English.

"In my personage, for eternal times, I hold the Emperor of Ralkovia as the ruler of Ralkovia. His body is the state, his soul, the people. We accept his strength and worship it as our own. We relinquish our claim to the ignorance of our life. He who is master, we recognize. We who love him, hold him close. His ideology perfect, his body a sanctuary, his heart the key to the Heavens. We forever fall beholden to his requests, knowing that he knows the future and the will of G-d. I hereby humbly recognize the Emperor of Ralkovia as my leader," the Death Guard said, finishing his words up.

Already the Ralkovians were getting ready to leave Vorindun. Soon they would return to the Homeland, where an Emperor was waiting with a smile on his face.

For those living under a tyrannical regime like the Front, these kinds of words were familiar and they had no trouble with agreeing to them. There wasn't much difference, to be honest. They could live under this kind of rule, better than with the kind of egalitarian constitutional monarchy the Kaiser and his confederates had in mind....damn that inbred Lutheran prick, Ursulus thought in particular.

Following orders came easy, too. It was the idea of command....a notion essential to the Fascist ideology at the heart of the Front and its now crumbling rule over Vorindun.

[The Vorindun]

Marinus never saw it coming. The doors were locked, the men on duty were all in on it...having replaced the real Patrician Guards, who were all killed off piecemeal elsewhere. When the signal came, the guards in the room simply drew their sidearms and shot the members of the Commissariat in the back of the head. None survived.

That was when the doors unlocked and opened, and with a remarkably low body count (despite the murders), the members of the new junta took over the management of the State. Whether or not it would do any good was hard to say, but they could at least begin to alleviate the harm caused by those mad clowns they just killed.

And then, well time would tell....

But they would not stomach permanent occupation. Abolition of slavery, yes. The Kaiser, perhaps. But not foreign domination. Not for a million goldmarks would they pass beneath the yoke. That had to stop if there was to be a reconciliation with the other Vorindun to form a reunified country. These junior members of the Front would just have to haggle for the best possible terms, if they could, unlike the cowards who had fled to Ralkovia or the imbeciles they had just slain.

Soon, the press release was issued, of course, and people in the capital were alerted to the new political reality in the capital. They would fight for Vorindun, but would hope and pray for peace and a sensible compromise.

"Today, the Grand Council and Commissariat have been removed from office and abolished. There is a new team in command now. In charge of the Fatherland Front is the National Standing Committee, at least for now. In command of the State is the Supreme Authority Council. I, Father Vidiges Odoacer, as President of the SAC and Chairman of the NSC, do hereby assure you that we will do our utmost to save the Fatherland from the kind of humiliating, Carthaginian peace normally imposed by these particular foreign powers invading our sacred soil.

"The Patricius is dead and the office he held is also abolished. Collective rule is the order of the day for now.

"We are willing to negotiate in goodwill and good faith, but not to accept unconditional surrender or any other such demands, either from the Kaiser or his foreign confederates. We honestly urge and appeal to all parties to sit down and reason together to achieve peace and freedom for all concerned. There is indeed, as the Preacher wrote, a time for war and a time for peace. Now it is time for peace."

There, that would put the ball back in the enemy's court.

If bloodshed continued, it would not be on Odoacer's hands.

[Menelmacar]

OOC: Sorry for the delay on this post. Due to a relative lack of details I’ve taken some liberties with the layout of the camp and the strength of the IYS guards. If I’ve gotten anything horribly wrong, please tell me and I’ll edit accordingly.

Taniquetil Command
Vinyatírion, Menelmacar

The hammerblow would come tonight. Lord Glorfindel nos Losloriel smiled grimly as he surveyed the image in the main holoprojector in the war room dedicated to the war in Vorindun. Taniquetil had several such chambers, each dedicated to this or that conflict, skirmish, or brushfire war in which Menelmacar had an interest. A war challenging enough, and sufficient in scale, to require more than one or two of these rooms had not come in a thousand years, and that opponent, today, was nearly extinct, though scattered colonies remained among distant stars, with neither the ability nor the desire to resume hostilities.

Lord Glorfindel’s forces were the Mornahossë, the Shadow Host, the tip of the Menelmacari spear. Every one of them was handpicked by him, every one of them had hundreds of years at the least of combat experience, and every one of them could, by the most conservative possible estimates, be numbered among the finest and most skilled individual soldiers in all the worlds Menelmacar had visited. And two hundred of them, a number necessary only because of the sheer size of the target, had been selected and gathered by Glorfindel for this mission.

High above orbited the Elenpalantíri, the dense mesh of reconnaissance satellites that were a crucial part of any Menelmacari war effort. Every minute of every day they gathered and relayed to Taniquetil yottabyte upon yottabyte of data: real-time holographic video, telemetry in hundreds of spectra, and intercepted signals of every description. The data was sifted and cross-examined and flagged for interest by a phalanx of dedicated AI’s, and a portion of that was assembled and sent to the image that lay before Glorfindel now.

The Menelmacari objective was one of the two vast slave labor camps Vorindun had established for its elven population. The Menelmacari had designated their objective Camp ‘M’; they either didn’t know, or didn’t care, what the place’s real name was. The other such camp was to be hit simultaneously by the Allaneans, and had been designated Camp ‘A’.

Camp ‘M’ was truly vast, similar in concept to Auschwitz but an order of magnitude larger in scale, both in area and population. It had a railway station where trains of boxcars loaded to standing room only arrived carrying elven slaves, and a wide courtyard where prisoners were assembled and sent off to their barracks. The barracks were rows of long buildings, huge, but certainly insufficient for the hundreds of thousands, possibly more than a million, estimated to be held here. Finally, on the opposite side of the rail line from the camp proper, were a power plant, the guard barracks and facilities, and the administration building. The camp itself was set among a city’s worth of factories and foundries that made use of the slave labor the camp provided.

The Allanean information had been important, but most of it had confirmed what the Menelmacari already knew about Camp ‘M’. They had been watching the camps for much of the war so far, preparing for this moment. The Elenpalantíri were capable of remarkable resolution, and there was always at least two overhead. The Menelmacari knew where the guards were, and the routes and times of their patrols. They knew the layout and purpose of each building, and had a rough, but probably fairly accurate, estimate of prisoner numbers in each barracks. Even now technicians and analysts and adjutants bustled about the main holo and various stations about the room, and the holo had been marked up and annotated with all the relevant information they had gathered.

For a camp this large there were thousands of Imperial Youth Service guarding it, and dispatching them before they could kill any prisoners would be tricky. The …children… had been a surprise, actually, Glorfindel reflected. A grim and distasteful surprise, but a welcome nonetheless. They would be no match for the Shadow Host, or even the greenest Menelmacari soldiers… but no chance was being taken. Anything less than total success in this mission was unacceptable. Fortunately, his people knew their jobs, and they knew the plan. Ideally, the Master of the Mornahossë wouldn’t need to issue a single order tonight, but he wished more than anything he could be out there with them.

Camp ‘M’
Vorindun

The insertion had been a task of trivial ease. The Vorindun air force and air defense systems had been totally and completely wiped out by this point, so it was simply a matter of landing a series of dropships along the cost and disgorging the Mornahossë inside into the woods. There were two hundred, and they were accompanied by Ronyo support drones, hovering weapons platforms about a meter long with the AI minds of dogs… very loyal, very intelligent, very well-trained dogs, if dogs were born with built-in heavy weapons and knew how to use them. Ideally, tonight, they wouldn’t have to, but they were here just in case. The Mornahossë had plasma rifles, swords, and their active-camo-equipped armor, as well as various specialized gear for the task at hand. For much of the mission they would be divided into two teams, which would be commanded by two of the Mornahossë’s most legendary officers.

The first group would be led by Curonlaes nos Losloriel, a member of Lord Glorfindel’s own House. He was one of the first and oldest members of the Mornahossë, and had fought in all the Lóki Wars starting with the Seventh, through the Twentieth, the last. Cúronlaes had accompanied the Elentári herself, Lady Sirithil nos Fëanor, when she had confronted and subdued the ancient wyrm Thauramlug. And he had fought alongside Glorfindel – and very nearly died – in the raid on Ornatarost that had opened the invasion of Mornagroth. That raid had seized the Mornatári Kalariel from her own palace into Menelmacari custody, where she languished to this day.

The other group would be led by Idhrindiel nos Fithurin, an Avar of a much shorter, but no less storied, career. The fiancée of C’tani Nemesor Arnran Severan, she had fought in a score of different wars herself. It had been she who had assassinated the Kajali Emperor Sorath Seiran Dajal II, vaporizing him in the middle of a televised speech. She had infiltrated the vampire-ruled nation of Aligeretha, to secure the allegiance of the elven resistance in that realm. And she had led the raid that seized the leader of The Incorporation after his ordered attack on a C’tani warship – and rewarded his subsequent escape attempt by cutting off his arm. It was rumored she’d kept it, as a trophy.

Immediately after landing, Cúronlaes sang a song of power of the Yáraquetta, the Ancient Canon of Menelmacari magic, and a dark mist rolling up from the sea, concealing their presence and passage. Their active camouflage activated as well; the only visible sign of their movement would be a shimmer in the air, like waves of heat off a desert road on a summer’s day.

The likewise camouflaged drones close on their heels like the hunting hounds for which they were named, the Mornahossë passed silently and tirelessly and with great speed over the land, traveling under deep darkness in a way that somehow seemed refreshing, as though they were carried along by the mist that traveled with them, like leaves blown on the wind. A few miles short of the camp, the teams split, wheeling round to close on the camp from north and south.

The mist settled on the camp like a natural fog might, but this was unusually dense, cutting visibility to a few yards at best, giving the elves yet another advantage; their helmet heads-up displays showed the annotations and data provided by Glorfindel’s staff. They could see the outlines of guards peering nervously into the mist in their towers, and stumbling carefully along on their patrols. They could see lines indicating those patrol routes, and the wire-frames of structures. Only the enemy would be blind.

A few minutes passed, before confirmation came that the Allaneans were in position and ready to strike their objective. Cúronlaes waited a few more minutes; a flurry of radio traffic inside the camp transpired as guards reported in. That was the cue; they had an hour before the next report. Cúronlaes gave the order to move.

The Mornahossë fanned out along the wall, two to a watchtower, and began to climb. Each tower was a sheer vertical pillar of concrete, but this was no obstacle; the gloves and boots of their armor were equipped with thousands of tiny pads patterned after those of a gecko, capable of adhering to nearly any surface to facilitate a climb. As they hopped the rail their swords were already out; if plasguns sang tonight, something had gone wrong. It was imperative that the killing be done silently and that an alarm not be raised. When one was invisible and had been doing this sort of thing for centuries, though, it was fairly easy. A hand from behind, clapped over a mouth, to suppress a scream. Then a blade across a young throat, letting out the adolescent guards’ life’s blood without getting it on the Mornahossë and possibly ruining the camouflage.

To an onlooker it would be a bizarre sight indeed: heatwaves on a night cooled by fog, then a head abruptly pulled back and a throat erupting with blood, and it happened over and over, nearly simultaneously, on every watchtower along the high fence. The elves were careful not to do any killing or leave any bodies where a camera could see it done, of course; they couldn’t see them, but a dead guard is as much a reason to raise an alarm as an intruder. They were brutal, if quick, deaths, but too good for these ones, who had certainly abused and murdered many an elf.

The perimeter thus secured, the two teams began to move along the rows of barracks. The prisoner areas were in two rough areas, a north camp and a south camp, joined only at the railway station, and each was swept by one of the two teams. Patrolling guards were quietly dispatched in much the same method as the tower guards.

Each barracks of prisoners had a guard room, and here, too, the floors ran with Vorindun blood. The prisoners were left to remain sleeping, but Idhrindiel gasped in horror when she glanced, out of curiosity, inside a barracks; everything was unspeakably filthy and squalid, and the building was overcrowded beyond sense. Every bunk had multiple elves on it and some still had to sleep on the floor. As far as she could tell, one latrine at each end of the building was the only ones available, and each of them served a thousand or more. Flies buzzed audibly in the uninsulated room, really little more of a warehouse, hot in the summer heat. The conditions were disgraceful… but in minutes, all these people would be freed.

After sweeping the train station, Cúronlaes’ team moved towards the small power plant that powered the camp. There had been discussion of blowing it up, or cutting the power earlier in the plan, but it had been decided this would tip the Menelmacari hand, and unacceptably raised the risk of an order being given to execute prisoners. Thus the elven prisoners were secured first. Cúronlaes found the place where the lines departed the building… and they were easily severed with a shot from his Ronyo’s plasma cannon. Lights went out across the camp, and no word would be going out from here tonight.

Idhrindiel’s team, meanwhile, reached the administration building. The prisoners were safe; the power was out. So now they could be a bit messy. They stormed the building, a brutal and utterly one-sided bloody mess of a hack and slash as they carved through all the ‘youth’ in their way. The officers alone were taken alive; there were special plans in mind for them.

The last thing on the agenda was the mopping-up of the remaining guards. Here, too, there was neither mercy nor compunction. Both teams converged on the guard barracks and went room to room, beheading the Imperial Youth Service while they slept in their beds. They did about half of them before someone awoke and cried out as blood erupted from his roommate, impaled on a blade visible only by being coated in his blood. This began a general panic as the remaining guards – mere teenagers in their pajamas – fled the unseen assailants in abject pants-wetting terror, finding the exits locked. Only the Mornahossë left this building alive; in the front room they left a great pile of the corpses of those who had fled there to find their escape thwarted. Some had been crushed in the trample to escape. The elves went through the rest, killing them quite brutally one by one. Those who thought to hide amongst the dead would not be missed, as the Menelmacari went through the pile, cutting the head off anyone who turned out not to be dead.

The operation was complete at last, and it had all been done in the hour between check-ins. Cúronlaes sent a transmission to Glorfindel, now: “It is done, my Lord. Camp ‘M’ is ours and its prisoners are free.”

OOC: I’ll let Vorindun post his guards; the official liberation of the prisoners and what is done with them will be in another post that I’ll put up later on.

[Allanea]

Camp 'A', Vorindun

The PLU commandos did not trust their parachutes to carry them down unnoticed. They simply fell, speeding through the night skies in freefall until they were about a hundred yards from their ground. Then, and only then, at the last possible moment, the parachutes opened, triggered by electronic timers and not by the human hand, allowing the black-clad troops to slide gently to the ground. Another second – and black-bladed knives cut the cords that held the parachutes in place, and the commandos rushed forward.

Silenced rifles made low, snapping sounds, aimed at the men on the guard towers. They were not perfectly quiet, of course – nothing ever is – but they were quite better than a regular gun. Chambered in heavy, subsonic rounds that made no whip-crack noise when they abandoned the barrels, the rifles left almost no noise except for the clanking of their bolts as they took out the child soldiers.

Other Allaneans approached even closer to the camp, firing their own silenced weapons – this time, rocket launchers. The rockets sailed over the camp fence and towards the windows of the guard barracks – and did not explode. Instead, they exuded fog – fentanyl sleep gas, good enough to either put a man asleep or to disorient him if he didn't get enough of a whiff.

Launcher operators continued firing rocket after rocket as their fellow men crawled closer and closer toward the camp fence. Soon enough, wirecutters began to snap at the wire in dozens of places – and far behind and above more and more parachutes were opening.

The Allanean Airborne Infantry were deploying in force. Hundreds of infantry were paradropping directly onto the roofs of the camp barracks, while others were landing outside the camp, rifles at the ready. Their BMD-4M Airborne infantry vehicles were landing too, carried down by parachute platforms braked by tiny retro-rockets. There would be no more stealth now, the roar of dozens of rockets tore through the night -but it was no longer needed either.

Soon enough, chaos began to reign everywhere. Allanean commandos and paratroopers in fired guns at anyone who dared stumble out into the open in a Vorindunian uniform, while staying clear of the fentanyl fog. Worse yet, once the locations of the guard barracks was confirmed and the BMD-4M vehicles landed, automatic cannon began clattering in the night, peppering the buildings with dozens upon dozens of shells.

Over this hell, the loudspeaker-augmented voice of Brigadier-General Koni rang:

"Surrender now. You have no chance to survive. Surrender immediately."

It was quite the mirror of the Menelmacari strike - except what the Allaneans lacked in elven subterfuge and technology, they made up for in numbers, speed, and firepower, deploying far more of their best men than would ever be needed to fight against youth troops.

[The Vorindun]

Publius Statinius, Commandant of the Alarica Slave Camp, stood there in rather soaked pants, not even having the nerve to do what his Roman relatives would do (he was half-Roman, half-Ostrogoth) and commit suicide. After all, that would mean eternal damnation, Surrender seemed the only option. Statinius was a rare case. Older than most of his troops by far, he was in charge as an "efficiency expert" on loan from the Fatherland Front party militia. All of his adjutants and such were IYS officers and they were even more terrified than himself.

"Very well. We surrender. Just don't kill us," he answered, putting up his hands.

He had no clue what the Allaneans had in mind for him.

[The Vorindun]

The young officers made no attempt to resist, being quite awestruck and terrified of the foe. The Elves seemed like infernal beings, fallen angels out to damn their souls to Eternal Hell. They had been thoroughly indoctrinated that the Elves were pure evil, created by Satan as a perverse counterfeit of the human race through illicit unions between human women and the host which revolted with Lucifer. Nephilim, the mighty men of Genesis, fruit of the unnatural liaisons between woman and devil. Why else were their ears pointy, after all? Everyone knew that pointy ears were the mark of the demon.

They had enslaved and abused these people, who were now out for their blood...they could tell. More than a few had soiled themselves in horror at being the mercy of these Elves. They really feared for their lives now.

[The Vorindun]

It had taken several days to arrive, but now the Kaiser's juggernaut hammered at the last three divisions of Imperial Youth service troops. Thirty thousand boy soldiers now faced a massive assault by veteran combat troops, heroes of such battles as Lehman Beach and many of the engagements of the previous civil wars.

Six legions of the Kaiser's loyal men, half of them Imperial Marines, another sixth composed of the Exile Legion, and the last two being volunteers and reservists who had defected to the Kaiser as soon as they heard of his arrival, hit the IYS like a T-Rex biting into an herbivorous dinosaur. Despite being nominally equal in strength, the Kaiserists were vastly superior troops, as was demonstrated when they struck hard at the enemy and the IYS fought with uneven degrees of firmness.

The first phase was the air bombardment, mostly by A-10 Warthogs and Apache attack helicopters, which ripped the enemy to shreds. Then came the mortars, howitzers, rockets, heavy railway guns....finally, the frontal assault, spearheaded by armor. The infantry cleaned up, but there wasn't much left by then....

45 minutes later, it was all done.....the IYS units surrounding Olwean Renaissance were all either killed, wounded, missing, or captured. No siege force remained. The Siege of Olwean Renaissance had been officially relieved. The Olweans could now come out and trade again. Food would get into the city-state. Hunger would end at last. Misery would lift.

Signals were now sent to the Olweans, to notify them that the siege was finished. The relief force had prevailed.