Bara Ballyhoo
Saint Joseph: Door to Door
Many ordinary houses in Saint Joseph had cracked brickwork, had dirt roads and courtyards, in better cases packed down with decent gravel, and often seemed to share courtyards with other buildings. The courtyards were places where laundry and some outdoor cooking were done and seemed communal. Sometimes a landlord owned the property and just lived in one of the houses or on one of the floors of the insulae; in others they were all rentals.
They would come across men in various degrees of being clothed playing cards on a sort of picnic table, smoking and chatting and eating snacks. They would come across naked women washing sheets while naked children and dogs messily got in the way. They would encounter what looked like a house but was actually a shop for shoemakers or sellers of chemicals and tools; they would come across one that was a school where children were reciting the Latin alphabet or doing a sing-song recitation of Edomite geography. Some houses had savour smells of sizzling sheep sausage or grilled catfish; others smelled of herb and honey candles. At one house, they came across as they approached a cart full of reeking jars full of urine and feces being collected from a neighborhood where sewer lines were unreliable. Men in coveralls and masks worked around the fly swarming cart.
Generally they got one of two responses. "I know nothing, Your Honour," or "It was probably Monarchists/Free Congress insurgents" with little other information.
The Blackhawk
Enemy rounds zipped around Raddy and his AG, tearing up grass and reeds, slapping mud and slashing around them frighteningly, but they were very low down and using the hummocks, thick with mud and rotting log, as cover, and so it was more scary that threatening...for now. But clearly the cover of their approach had been blown, and the enemy would find their range any moment. This was a fleeting thought; the main thought Raddy had was keeping his head down for a moment and then relocating.
Boogus on the other hand was very aware of this; the enemy had a general idea of their position, that wasn't good, and had air and artillery that they might call in, even worse. It was time to hit them hard and bug out. He spoke quietly through their encoded headsets to tell Melzo that he wanted an RPG attack on the enemy position then to fall back.
Unknown to them, their enemies were falling back as they laid down smoke and suppressing fire, so when they fire the rockets off (their last for the time being) and began to do the same, it wasn't for a bit that they realized that it may have been one of those moments where you brush the enemy in the dark, have a frantic fight, then fall back. Boogus grinned to himself in the dark. The Lord was good. "Let us keep moving. They had a means of detecting us--they may have hidden drones, they may have an observation plane or drone up with IR capability, but we will use the channels and reeds to guise our passage and avoid being seen, and go to our nearest hidden base camp and regroup and reconsider."
Yeg was walking wounded, but Priest wanted him stabilized and to examine him more carefully, keep infection at bay. It was a good day to go home, such as home was, for the Sugar Rats.
Heshbon
"If you go out in the woods today, prepare for a big surprise..." sang Sergeant Noyeed as the soldiers began to line up outside their APCs. The Marine Infantry grinned in the early morning sun. "Be alert. Be ready! Don't take nothing for granted you snipes, do you hear me?"
"WE HEAR YOU SERGEANT!' shouted the Marine Infantry. The APCs were a bit muddy, but they got a good going over in their engines, their electronics, their fluids, their combat systems every day, a tiring but necessary practice.
Captain Shadrach Shobal and Lieutenants Kiron, Nebat and Shaphat, walked out of their billet, looking refreshed, hard jawed, cheerfully.
"How are you this morning, sir?" asked Nebat, the First Platoon Commander, a tough young man with muscled forearms, glancing up from doing morning exercises with an Elwe fighting knife.
"Fantastic. Had one of the best shits I've had on this campaign," he announced. "The man who never leaves his comfortable home reckons now how prized is a good clean healthy movement of the bowels, gentlemen." This was both amusing but true, and they spoke briefly in praise of the excellent toilet paper that Wendt had brought with her.
The line of APCs were like mechanical cavalry chargers lined up before an action. Unlike all the trucks and the lightly armed recon vehicles the Ghantish had, they bristled with weapons, their huge wheels grimly solid. Not far off, the whirring sound of helicopters was heard. Shobal and his people began to do communications checks, systems checks, ready to accompany the Ghantish on the mission.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sarah Wendt had made sure that the Ghantish knew their duty. They were to help make sure people were loaded up into the transports and help with the processing of them: make sure of the correct dimensions and weight of goods, make sure proper security was maintained around the vehicles. No more than four vehicles per grouping in convoys, then 100 meters between the next set to avoid ambushes clogging up an entire convoy and causing a massacre. Encounter with mines, call Engineers from the 9th, set up a cordon of security. They would do the villages in groups of four; which should take about 4-6 days. Wendt would occasionally be on the ground with them, at other times in an observation helicopter, which she would be doing today. Questions from villages--field to Public Information Personnel attached to each mission. One company per mission from the Ghantish, one platoon of Edomites should do the trick.
Went, looking scrubbed and clean, came out to speak with Captain Shobal and the others; somehow even in army boots her hips swayed and up close little bouncy movements of her lovely curves was on display; her delicate throat and lovely face lit up the town.
"Captain, best of luck," she said with a smile.
"For the Heir," he replied, snapping a salute.
"The Heir!" she returned it and then somehow briskly and sensually at the same time went to the waiting chopper, donned her helmet and climbed in.
"Alright Sergeant," said Shobal to Noyeed. "Mount." he went to climb into his APC as Noyeed thundered, "MOUNT!" and the Edomite Marine Infantry rushed as with one soul into their APCs and recon vehicles.
Salcah
The several actions that had recently taken place seemed to add up to several items of intelligence for the Adirans.
First: Lieutenant-Colonel Havoth-Jair, in charge of Monarchist intelligence in the area, was reluctant to share it, and was vague in response to queries. He felt that telling the Adirans that an action had taken place was enough, and that the Adirans having promised to patrol potential trouble spots, should agree to do that and then let the Edomites evacuate suspected ETC friendly villages to camps in the east.
Major Isaac Dan, in Jabbok, denied any involvement at all with insurgents but entirely sympathized with them. Havoth-Jair accused him of supplying the insurgents, which Dan, in very offended tones, claimed was very insulting and advised Havoth-Jair that if permitted he would send a friend to call upon him. Havoth-Jair replied that the friend would be welcome and would reply with an appropriate message.
A problem included in all this was the simple fact that an enormous number of pro-ETC villagers in Bara and Teman were armed--often lightly, but still, at least a few in each village were familiar with heavy weapons, and often would if obtaining them train others to use the simpler ones like mortars, grenades and RPGs or simple explosive devices that could be used as mines.
The final problem was that the cease fire did not take into account the number of pro-ETC villages in Monarchist held territory or towns like Jabbok and Saint Joseph which were a bit more Monarchist friendly but surrounded by a sea of smaller pro-ETC communities.
Harbourtown
As Tim Stanton and his crew rushed to Psalmist District in a truck that had NENN NEWS stenciled on it in big bold blue letters, the truck being white, a group of curious new arrivals came to the airport.
The new arrivals had been much anticipated; they were certainly considered heretical but also friends, and so accordingly they were helped with their waivers and greeted by representatives of the National Council for Refugees, that Edomite NGO that helped displaced persons. A place called the Excellence Hotel located between the dock district and the Commercial District had been reserved for them, and buses chartered for their transit there.
"there are some troubles going on however," said Apostolic Bishop Caius Moravius, a balding energetic beanpole of a cleric, wearing black robes whose sleeves occasionally bared ropey-muscled lean arms and big strong carpenter's fingers. "So it's best we delay until we get word that it's safe to travel. Meanwhile, there is a friendly school nearby that has said we can have you rest in some of their spare rooms, and we can have you brought tea, fizzy water and food if you'd care to accept our hospitality there."
