((I, in real life, am about to ship out to Army training. While there, I'll be cut off from a lot of the pleasures of life, but I'll still have my writing. So, while there, I decided to create a story about my WOW character being taken as a POW to explain my IC absence on the servers. While my guild has a forum of its own, a few of my friends don't have access, so here is me putting this out there for them to also enjoy. This thread is not, repeat not, meant for replies, though if you have comments I would be happy to hear them through telegram. That is all. Please enjoy my week-by-week way of surviving an Army camp for 45 days.))
Kestler Household
Gilneas City, Military District
23 years ago
“Stop.”
Johan Kestler, all of fourteen years old, let out a sigh of relief as the sword pressed against his own relented, allowing him a moment of reprieve. The swords were dulled metal, a step up from the wooden dummies of his childhood. His trainer was a Gilnean army veteran with a trio of scars across the top of his bald head, a souvenir from a troll’s claw weapon. The 2nd War only over for two years, the scar still looked fresh even though it had healed over, and the soldier had only grunted away any questions young Johan had asked about it.
From the back porch strode the hulking form of Soren Kestler. Though the ripe age of sixty-two, the Kestler patriarch was still in prime health, his hair and moustache not the white of old age but the defiant steel of a veteran. Muscles bulged under the fitted training jerkin, and his hands were enormous, reaching out and smacking Johan upside the head with little restraint. The veteran, Matthias, winced but did not protest, more than used to this sight.
Johan fell to the grass, his head ringing though still keeping a hold on his sword as he tumbled, blinking rapidly to try and clear his vision.
“Your guard was wide open. If Matthias had been an orc, you’d be gutted and spread over this yard. Have none of your lessons settled, boy?” His grandfather reached down, trying to wrestle the training blade away from the boy. Unable to wrest it out, he grunted in satisfaction, finally letting go. “At least you’ve learned -something.-” He spat, and though it was not directly at Johan the boy still felt some moisture on his cheek. He glared at the old man, though knew better than to speak. That lesson had taken time to settle in.
Soren sighed, waving Matthias away for a break. Reaching up, he tugged a towel from one shoulder and offered it to the boy, who took it reluctantly, watching for a trap. It hadn’t been the first time he had ‘ambushed’ Johan under the guise of offering help. But the offer was genuine, and Johan wiped off his brow, pushing up into a sitting position and panting in exertion. He’d been training with his grandfather, father, mother and whoever else they brought in since he was seven, yet it seemed they always had some way to bring him down to new lows. He was stronger and faster than any other kid at the public school, and his strategy and history lessons had made him a fast thinker. But it was never enough. Always another mountain to climb, another length to run. A month ago, his grandfather had made him run all the way to Tempest’s Reach and back in the rain, not citing a reason or lesson for doing such. Last year, his mother had taken him hunting in the Blackwald and he had quickly found himself alone (though not completely as she revealed she had not gone far). And just last week his father had been home on leave to take him to Emberstone mine, where the foreman had been convinced to let Johan work in the shaft doing the labor of a grown man. It was an intense life.
“Johan. You’re fourteen. Public school ends in two years. You will be of enlistment age.” Soren, despite his advanced age, knelt next to the boy with the fluidity of a tightly honed physique. Rumor was he had once sparred with King Greymane...and that the king had lost. Rumor, of course. Soren sighed, rubbing his face. “You must be ready.”
“I will be, Grandfather.”
“You -think- you will be.” Soren stood, offering his hand to Johan. “But you won’t know until you first stroll into battle. And if you keep holding your guard like that, you won’t last a single skirmish.”
Aboard the vessel Majesty
Kul Tiran Stormbringer-class ship of the line
Stormwind Harbor
October 4th, Year 33 ADP
The Kul Tiran ship featured many additional facets that similar models from the Alliance and Gilneas didn’t. A deeper kitchen for longer voyages, an onboard barber to keep the sailors in good appearance, and a full-sized briefing room capable of seating a hundred. Though not officially returned to the Alliance, the invasion of Stormsong Valley combined with the recent attempted coup of Lady Ashvane over Proudmoore meant that many officers in the Navy no long trusted their superiors. Some even demanded to be returned to the Alliance, if only to avenge Brennadam. Needless to say, some admirals had started acting on their own initiative.
Regardless, the Kul Tiran detachment was here on direct orders, though it not only refused to unfurl its fleet standard but the sailors were extremely tight-lipped about who exactly had ordered them here. The Majesty’s briefing room held officers from the Kul Tiran Marine Corps, stalwart men in storm silver plate armor who said little, some of them being enormous and burly. The rest of the room had Alliance Navy, Ironforge Air Force and (mostly) Gilnean uniforms filling the rest of the seats, many inside having to jostle and make room for the much larger worgen. Officers and senior NCOs literally rubbed elbows as they moved to their seats, the low murmur filling the comparatively small room.
“Quiet!”
A rapping came from the podium up front. Captain Ulriss had taken the stand, and in response the human, dwarven, worgen and gnomish voices quickly quieted down, eyes riveted to the front. Standing next to the Kul Tiran office was a night elf, a Sentinel captain by her insignia and armor, and a Gilnean major by her side in turn.
“Well, now we’re all assembled,” Captain Ulriss said, picking up a sheaf of papers and straightening them out, glancing down before addressing the room again. “Gentlemen, welcome to Operation Ember. This briefing will inform you of the details of the plan you’ll be executing in approximately two weeks time. Your units have already received training schedules the past few weeks, and this is where we’ll put it all together for you.”
At this, the Gilnean major, a man named Carver, stepped to the fore, clearing his throat as he did so. This was the commander of 3rd Brigade’s 2nd Battalion, and he certainly looked like he belonged to the Peer. No worgen himself, he wore an immaculate dress coat, with decorations pinned painfully straight on his breast, no doubt by an overworked attendant. His hair was greased back, revealing a widow’s peak he did nothing to hide, and his moustache was waxed in the latest style in Stormwind. He held himself like a peacock, the upper crust of Gilnean society.
To Sergeant Johan Kestler, sitting in the crowd, there was nothing more superficial than an officer who was full of himself. It made him miss being surrounded by competent superiors, like when he had been summoned to the Grymmtide mission by the Lord General. While the results had been less than ideal, it had been a breath of fresh air to have people who knew what they were doing around. To his left, Chief Sergeant Halvin Hardstout drove an elbow into Kestler’s ribs, grunting “Now’s the part where they tell us how they plan for us to die for the cause.” Kestler had met the dwarf pilot some time ago on the alternate Draenor, where the worgen’s platoon had rescued him from a devastating crash. Since then, the two had met again in the Broken Isles, and again in Kul Tiras and former Forsaken territory. Unlike Kestler, Hardstout had fought in the Battle for Lordaeron, and described the terrifying battle to him in the medical ward. Kestler merely grunted by way of reply, knowing better than to keep chattering when a peacock of an officer had taken the stand.
Major Carver reached up, tugging down a map from a canvas roll, exposing territory that every Gilnean knew by heart. Silverpine Forest’s landscape greeted them all, several unit stickers displaying known Horde and Alliance positions. Since the fall of the Undercity, the Alliance had been pressing to finally take back the old wood, but with the renewed Horde offensive in Arathi and the incursions on Kul Tiras, priorities had been decided. Now, it finally looked as if things would swing back to the Gilneans to reclaim their former home.
Major Carver cleared his throat. “Fenris Isle has fallen to the Bloodfang,” he announced. This was not news, the castle had been seized even before Lordaeron had been put to siege. “With Lordaeron eliminated as a supply point and a source of reinforcements, the Forsaken front has become overextended.” He pointed at several red icons, mostly focused around Shadowfang Keep, Ambermill and the road that had previously led north. These were marked with unit designations and the emblem of the Forsaken, a circling around the Gilnean lines that had slammed shut and refused to open again. Up at Fenris Isle, an Alliance banner with an icon of raking claws hung, indicating the wogen guerillas in Ivar’s pack that had seized the keep. For the most part, the Horde forces had a lock on the area, for they controlled the roads and several hardpoints, keeping the worgen in the south corralled in.
“The Horde has reinforced the roads, hardening positions here in Silverpine,” Carver continued, slapping Horde emblems onto the map at various points up and down the canvas. “Unsurprisingly, Blightcaller has also dispatched Dark Rangers into the woods here and we believe here as well. But one thing they haven’t changed is the location of their High Command.”
Here, Carver drew attention to a spot in the north, marked “Forsaken Rear Guard” and “Forsaken High Command.” While once important, it had been thought that these places had been emptied of all important material, especially with Shadowfang in their grasp. Apparently, that was not the case.
“The new Outriders are headquartered here, under command of a Dark Ranger named Alina,” said Carver, tugging out a swagger stick and indicating the High Command area. “The site also functions as a secondary HQ post for the region. Ever since Lordaeron fell, its officers have been relocated. Except for Grand Executor Mortuus. We have reliable intelligence stating he has remained at this post, conducting his experiments with Val’kyr and other chemicals. The two VIPs, any crucial documents and its location relevant to Fenris make this site an ideal target for a fast attack. With this, we will have the Forsaken encircled and be in prime position to cut them off from supply and reinforcement through Hillsbrad.”
Carver glanced around, seeing the crowd understood for the most part and there were no pressing questions before he bowed, stepping to the side to make room for the Sentinel Captain to take the center. The night elf did not introduce herself for a moment, instead taking a handful of icons out of a belt pouch and carefully affixing them to the canvas, making sure they were perfectly adjusted, unlike the icons Carver had simply slapped up on the map. Finally, she finished her work, and stood back, examining them before turning, her cloak billowing around her.
“I am Sentinel-Captain Melsynda Moonhollow. I will be the commander of forces on the ground.” She gestured back at the canvas, highlighting an area of coastline just west of the Forsaken High Command, past an area designated the ‘Forsaken Rear Guard’. “This area of beach will be our primary point of operations. It is called North Tide’s Beachhead. It leads into a hollow, which will allow us a straight shot into the hills. We overwhelm the Rear Guard, and then into the Command camp. But the hard part will be the landing.”
Moonhollow indicated the beach once again, and began putting up even more emblems on the canvas. Bunkers, barriers, minefields, artillery cannons. The more emblems were placed, the more concerned the crowd got, the more the murmuring began to stir up once again. Finally, when the beach was covered in more red than the background green, Moonhollow turned back to the crowd.
“The last time the Horde used this beach for landing, a group of feral Bloodfang worgen attacked the crew when they were in the process of offloading cargo. After, the Horde retook this area and built it up to construct a secure port. While the port itself wasn’t finished before Lordaeron fell, the defenses are strong, but undermanned. Securing this beach will give us the direct line we need to achieve all our mission objectives. We will have substantial support from the Alliance Navy, the Gilnean Navy, the Kul Tiras Navy and the Ironforge Air Force to land troops ashore. The first wave will consist of Marines from the 15th Kul Tiran battalion along with several Sentinels. Their job will be to push forward until they can go no further and dig in, clearing a space for the next wave.” Here, Hollowmoon moved blue icons across the canvas from the icons representing vessels until they were surrounded by red. “The bulk of the fighting force will come from Echo Company, of the 3rd Gilneas Brigade. Once the Marines have secured a foothold, it will fall to Echo to move up the beach and assault the bunkers, trenches and gun pits.”
The officers and NCOs of Echo Company, the bulk of the rooms occupants, shifted uneasily as they glanced to each other, knowing what Moonhollow wasn’t saying; once they made the push, they’d be taking the worst of the casualties. Down and dirty grunt work, moving from pit to pit. Worgen were tougher and stronger than most of the other Alliance races, almost as fast as Night Elves. But this was just crashing right into the enemy positions.
Moonhollow began going on about the ships and flying machines clearing up the hardest of the enemy positions, the bunkers and gunpits that posed the greatest threat to Echo Company, but Kestler’s mind began to wander. Echo Company alone was made up of one-hundred and eighty-nine soldiers, both human and worgen. Even if naval bombardment and aerial support softened up the beach defenses, they’d still be funneling straight into the enemy guns. One hundred eighty-nine men and women funneled across a beach was a recipe for a massacre.
Evidently, Hardstout thought the same thing, as he leaned over and muttered “So they’re just gonna run you up at the guns? What’s gonna stop the bullets, hopes and dreams?”
“To cover the advance,” Moonhollow suddenly said, as if cutting in on Hardstout and Kestler’s conversation. “We will be deploying several new prototype assault engines. The Amphibious Siege Engine, also known as the AMSIE by the gnomes developing the device, is a floating steam-powered craft which can carry twenty men each. These will take you to the beach and provide you cover fire with their onboard mortars.”
“Prototypes?” asked a nearby Echo officer, Lieutenant Vennrik snarled, cursing as she spat at the floor. “Damn gnomish inventions. May as well dig the graves now.”
The briefing continued, and every detail thrown in made Kestler’s gut sink further and further. Dwarven air support, but no carrier on standby? Where were they supposed to fly out from, Menethil Harbor? Ah, they were building a temporary airfield in the Wetlands. All this offshore bombardment support, but no mention of building a foothold base before pushing in? It all screamed of a smash and snatch for appearances’ sake, an attack to make it look like something was happening while the officers played God with toy soldiers. Except the toy soldiers were flesh and blood. Sergeant Kestler had been down this road before.
“It’s a political op,” he grunted, and Hardstout glanced up at him, as did several other officers around him, suddenly making a covert circle of conspiracy. “Carver gets to be praised for running a successful counter-intel op, Moonhollow gets some revenge for Teldrassil, the Kul Tirans get to dip their foot back into war again and the gnomes get to test a new device. This was a cut deal.”
“And what about us?” asked Lieutenant Ford.
“Someone has to die for their medals,” Kestler snarked, shaking his head. “So y’know what? Ignore that clap they’re spoutin’ up there. Difference between good officers and bad. Carver and Moonhollow don’t give a twit about us gettin’ back off that beach, mark my words.”
