1st Composite Reconnaissance Platoon
Tanuri Village, Empire of Corleans
9JUN19 0545 LOCAL- Exodus +5
Alpha Sgt. Maria Gutierrez
“Flagstone 6 actual, this is flagstone 1 actual. We got Persons of Interest here. A man, a woman and a very large cat, it seems. I’ll keep them busy until you get here”
Maria walked in the direction of the new commotion, arriving just as the male local squeezed the hand of Newman. She had clearly initiated contact with the man, who was just introducing himself.
“My name is Kiles and this is Sienne. A pleasure, I’m sure.”
“My name officer-without-a-job Gutierrez. You have weapons? Please hand over” she said in her broken Corlean. It was not easy to learn a whole language in five days, especially when the intel they got on the language was so incomplete. Different verbs, tenses, and of course the problem that some word, like sergeant, did not translate directly into Corlean. She then turned to her squad, and changed to the more familiar English.
“Alright, Packard, Imada, I want you to stay back and keep an eye out. Bauer, see if you can see anything where they came from.”
Then, Maria looked back at the two contacts in front of Cass. The man was rather tall for a Corlean, and there was a haughty atmosphere around him. The girl, on the other hand, was pale and thin. She was quiet too, jittery even, avoiding direct eye contact. Then, Maria noticed the blade-like ears coming from her auburn hair. Was she one of the Elves that she had heard people talk about? Probably. Or a demi-human. Demi-humans were often treated badly in the Empire, reduced to slavery and servitude. This girl was not even sixteen, it seemed. What was her relation to the man? Was she his daughter? They didn’t look alike in the slightest. A friend? One was to be suspicious of any relationship between so young a girl and a man like Kiles. Suddenly, an shiver went down Maria’s spine. She used her free left hand to point at the girl.
“Who’s she to you?” she inquired in Corlean, a stern note behind her voice.
United States Navy
Strike Group Essex, Essex Amphibious Ready Group
USS Essex, LHD-2, 3nm offshore from Naval Station Horizon
9JUN19 0600 LOCAL- Exodus +5
MAJ Charles Tavern
Charles looked in the mirror, and major Tavern looked back. His eyes just poking out from under his officer’s cap, looking sternly in his direction. He reminded himself of officers in the academy, when he first came in from West Bend. The kind that made him feel insecure, afraid, and like a fish out of the water. He thought he would never be like them, and sometimes, he still felt like that. Unready for the command that had been bestowed upon him by the death of his superior. The death of lieutenant-colonel Fraticelli by a rain of glass had turned his professional world upside-down. The death of Antonio, his friend who happened to be lieutenant-colonel, had struck him deep emotionally. Using his own blood-soaked fingers to, unsuccessfully, try and close the jugular arteries that had been cut open by the storm… The scars on his own face only reminded him of Antonio Fraticalli’s breathing getting softer and softer, before…
Major Tavern looked in the mirror, and Charles looked back. He had to focus on his work for now, if they ever wanted to get out of this shithole alive. He could not afford to break down, as so many others had already done. He now had a responsibility, and he could rest on that responsibility in order to take his mind off what had happened. There was time for mourning later, now there was a job to be done. He already dreaded the moment when he could sit down and relax. His dress sword looked ridiculous on his regular navy uniform, but only the Blue Men of the Grey Fleet knew that. The locals would not see what was wrong, they only cared whether he wore a sword or not. Major Tavern sighed. Work. He picked up a stack of paperwork and left his room, passing by the boxes of items that his staff would transport to the castle. His new residence.
During the helicopter ride, Charles could only think of the similarities between themselves and Columbus. Landing on foreign shores with overwhelming firepower and technology, immediately taking control… Ripping the land of its resources… He tightened his hand around the files under his arm. In it were three options he and his staff had worked out over the last five days. Three scenarios with wildly different views of the local population, their use, and how expendable they were to be perceived as. Charles started humming a song he’d heard long ago, which reminded him starkly of what was about to happen. He took a sideways glance at the captain. He surely hoped this man would be better than Columbus.
“Yes, captain, we’ll look at the possibilities for an airstrip” major Tavern answered as they were talking through Trisondil. Luckily it had not rained for days in these parts, otherwise the dirt roads of the town would already have turned to mud. Now, in the dry months, the overuse of these roads had turned them smooth and dusty. A single bout of rain would turn this whole thing into a mud pool. The dust began to collect on his black boots, which would require cleaning.
“Captain, sir, I have prepared three scenarios. Scenario 1 assumes that we will be here for a few weeks up to a couple of months until we are relieved. In that case, we can continue our current resource consumption without much trouble. We can use our resources to trade with locals for information, we can do hearts and minds, everything. It’ll be like Afghanistan, but the Taliban have swords.”
“Second scenario, we are here from 3 till 12 months. In that case, we’ll need to be conservative with our resources. Only do flights when strictly required, using the generators at half-capacity. The heaters will have to be replaced by wood fires, that kind of thing. We’ll need to build water filtration systems that don’t require power to run, and all personal electronics will have to be handed in. We’ll need to assist the locals in agriculture if we want to have enough food next summer, but we have a lot of strong backs and farm boys, myself included.”
Major Tavern swallowed hard.
“But sir… I and my staff agreed that there is no reason to believe we will not be here indefinitely, and there is no reason to think that we will be relieved. At all. Now, maybe they are already looking for us. Probably at the bottom of the Pacific by now, if I remember my S&R protocols. So…”
He swallowed a second time. ’Come on, you are an officer for Christ’ sakes. Bite the bullet’
“My staff and I assume we will be here indefinitely. In that case… The Essex strike group appearing here is like a mid-sized city appearing out of thin air in terms of economy and logistics. Food production is not prepared for this. There is not enough arable land in Trisondil and the surroundings to harvest the food we need. Every band-aid applied is one we won’t be able to use later. Every bullet fired we won’t get back. Every drop of gas, the same. And if that’s true, then with every passing day the balance of power moves in favour of the Empire.”
“If that is the case, then we need to aggressively acquire resources and territory. We need farmland, water supplies, manpower, iron mines, allies, if we want to live into 2020. Otherwise, we will starve before the Empire can even raise all its levies. I don’t like it, captain, but if we want to stay alive we will have to become an empire ourselves. We cannot afford hearts and minds in our current position”
The truth was hard. It basically meant that they were, for their own survival, forced into a bloodbath. Maybe it would be possible to start diplomatic relations with the empire, but after capturing one of their lords that seemed impossible. Then, they were on a war footing, and that forced them into extremes. Violent extremes, where the local population became just another resource. It was horrific, it was terrible, but it would be necessary to ensure their own survival. They could not just sit there and starve. Something had to be done.
