October 25, 2022
Day 5
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Anticipating a long-drawn battle, Shahid allocated all his free points to endurance as he ran out, and bumped into his fuming father.
"What have you done!"
Aadil screamed at his son and his three friends.
For the first time in his life, Shahid did not tremble with fear when faced with his father's wrath.
"I will explain that later. For now, we have a battle to win. Do you not hear the screams?"
That quieted his old man down, and Shahid continued.
"Everyone would have received the announcement that the coordinator is dead. Spread the word that it's either vote Aadil Khan or lose the bastion."
Shahid went on, not giving his father a chance to protest.
"Don't even think about arguing, Father. You have lived by your principles and may be stubborn enough to die for them, but don't sentence the hundreds of thousands here to that same fate. Democracy is not worth three hundred thousand lives."
Shahid did not wait for a reply as he ran outside into the battle.
Aadil swallowed the arguments that were stuck in his throat and for many long seconds stood completely still, stupified by the unexpected intensity of his son's words. As he stared at the disappearing back, Aadil realized, perhaps for the first time, that his son was not a teenager anymore. That he was a 25-year-old independent adult who hadn't been a teenager in many years. Seeing his son mature and take charge of the situation filled Aadil's heart with pride, but as he relayed the order to expedite the representative election, he feared he was already too late.
The enemy had attacked in force, caught them by surprise, and so far, met little resistance. By now, they were entrenched deep within their defenses.
A counter-offensive would be incredibly difficult from this disadvantageous position, but perhaps his son could do the impossible.
Shahid had always shown so much potential. A few years ago, he had been on track to clear the prestigious UPSC exams and join the top rung of administrative service and change the country. Then Imran took an interest in him, and everything went south.
But Aadil had seen him start changing for the better recently. Cometh the hour, cometh the man, Aadil's father, God bless his soul, always used to say. Maybe this adversity will be the moment for Shahid.
If only he had stayed true to himself and studied hard like Zoya.
Aadil found himself thinking, and the realization struck him that he had been comparing his children. The guilt over comparing his children, however, was soon forgotten.
Thinking about what his daughter was doing with her life sparked an idea in Aadil's mind.
A backup plan in case Shahid could not stem the saffron tide that had crashed against Jafrabad.
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It feels like everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.
Shahid thought, as he sat perched on top of the castle roof and fired arrow after arrow at the invading armies.
Every Hindu settlement around for miles had joined the assault and the settlement's 100,000-strong defensive force was outnumbered. Of the 300,000-odd residents of Jafrabad, a third were children. They had been kept away from all the fighting in the beast tides, and for good reason. But all the women had been forbidden from fighting too. The clergy had a strong influence on many matters in the settlement, and the Imams were unanimous on that topic.
The decision had certainly given the men more opportunity to level up, but also cut their fighting force in half. And in this battle, 200,000 level fives would have been far preferable to 100,000 level sixes.
The size of the settlement had led to an abundance of beast bastions, which in turn meant really strong elites. While they certainly were pulling their weight, it wasn't enough. Not only were they outnumbered, but their delayed response had also lost them all the walls, and the strategic advantage that the defending side usually had was gone too.
Worst of all, his armies were running out of potions.
Shahid did whatever he could to help, and after wiping out a small isolated cluster of enemies, told his three friends to go and collect the potions from their bodies. The potions were then distributed among the elites who could get the most use out of them.
He also took a few for himself.
But Shahid was only one man and felt helpless as he watched the shabbily put-together defensive lines falter across the bastion. There were no generals, lieutenants, or strategists to control the tides of battle, and it was mayhem everywhere.
Shahid was debating whether he should call a retreat to the castle halls for a final stand when he heard his name being called.
He looked behind and saw his father running toward him, breathless.
"I've been looking everywhere for you. How does the battle look?"
Shahid frowned.
"We are losing. No matter what I try, no matter how many I kill, it's accomplishing nothing. All I'm doing is prolonging the inevitable."
Shahid felt a weight lift off his shoulder after admitting the reality of the situation to his father. Surely, he could do something.
And he did, just not what Shahid was hoping for. But before he voiced his plan, Aadil asked his son a question.
"If we surrender now, do you think they will let us go? The women and children at least?"
Shahid looked around himself, and his face fell as he spoke.
"We may be losing this battle, but we are not letting the Hindus walk over us. Our enemies are paying with blood for every inch they advance, and we too are holding them back with our lives. Too many have died on both sides."
Shahid thought for a second before he continued.
"Forget about our enemies, I doubt our own people will agree to surrender. It's too late for peace. Both sides will fight to the last man. Maybe they will spare the women and children, but they have women among their ranks too. Our troops had hesitated at first, but half an hour into the battle, we are killing both genders without prejudice."
Aadil smiled ruefully.
"That's what I was afraid of. Never before in my life have I wished so desperately to be wrong, but it is what it is. I will explain the plan now, but get your ass back into the battle. You can listen to me and fire arrows at the same time. "
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As the first rays of the sun rose, the director sat smugly on the roof of one of the outposts. He had told the stewards that Indians held educational institutions in the highest regard, and would never attack one, no matter the circumstance.
"This place is a temple of knowledge. No one would desecrate a temple!"
He had told them.
The mood was jolly around him. The fact that they were not dying was only part of what had cheered the group up. What had been more heartening was the display of the best of humanity. There were sounds of fighting in many directions across the campus, but no one had attacked them.
If ever there was a time when the 'Faith in Humanity restored' meme was appropriate, it was now.
One of the elite students present on the roof thought to himself, and things remained quiet and peaceful for another hour before something changed.
A delegation, probably consisting of leaders of the settlement that had emerged victorious in this fighting, was headed toward the castle. They seemed to have located the director and were headed straight toward him.
About twenty men and women.
No one on the roof seemed in the least bit afraid of this development. After all, the approaching delegation came unarmed, and they were walking at a pre-integration human pace, not sprinting at a superhuman speed.
A sign of respect.
The director decided it appropriate to send out a delegation of his own to greet the visitors, and soon a group of students walked out to intercept the visitors and escort them to the roof.
As they reached the director, all twenty of the visitors inclined their heads slightly and one of them spoke.
"Dr. Venkatraman, we come in peace. I would assure you not to be alarmed, but it appears that is unnecessary. We all seem to be at ease, that is good. My daughter studies at this university, and I do not wish for any violence."
The words in the last statement did not at all match the cordial tone in which they were spoken, but the director didn't linger on that.
"Of course not. It is great to make your acquaintance, Mr. "
"Khanna."
The leader of the delegation supplied his name and kept speaking.
"I'm pleased to meet you too, but I'll get straight to business. This day has just begun, and I believe our settlement will see a lot more fighting before the night strikes. We are here to make preparations for that. I'm told that this college holds just under 4000 students and has 8 bastions. Is that correct?"
The director nodded uneasily.
"Very well. This outpost serves as a good vantage point, and I can see that your stewards did a good job positioning the other seven castles too. This entire campus will serve as a good barrier to buffer our new settlement against attacks. You surely understand we can't leave one of our flanks exposed, so we will be taking these bastions over, and settling your students in one of our own, somewhere they'll be safe. Don't worry, they will be living as comfortably as they do now, a thousand to a castle. We have plenty of space."
One of Khanna's aides interrupted.
"For now."
Mr. Khanna winced at the interruption, but he needn't have. Everyone was thinking the same thing. Once the bastions started to disappear, what would their rights be in this new settlement? The families of the faculty and staff already lived on the college campus, and the director had planned to tell the students that they could either go back to live in their hometowns to live with their parents, or invite them here. Based on whichever option was safer for them.
This threw a wrench in that plan.
"I do, of course, understand your situation. We'll be happy to let you station your troops in our outposts and guard your flanks. But to abandon our bastions and move somewhere else, I don't know. All the students here are quite attached to the campus, and most of them live far away from their homes and families. They will certainly be traumatized if they were forced to move someplace unknown. I am responsible for their wellbeing, and so on their behalf, I must politely refuse."
Mr. Khanna opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by a tall stocky man. The delegation of twenty was not all on the same page.
"You got the chance to do it your way, Khanna. Now it's my turn. This is not a school, and these are not kids. The students here are all adults, they can take some punches."
The director tried to protest, but couldn't get a word in.
"Find your daughter and take her with you. We will take care of the rest."
Seeing the man pause for a moment, the director spoke.
"Take care of the rest. What do you mean by that? Please be assured sir that there is no need for violence."
The stocky man spoke again.
"Shut up old man. We won't kill anyone. We'll just rough the students up a bit and let them run out and find their own way into the bastions we've set aside for them. Or you could hand over your bastions now and save us all the trouble. Swear fealty to the Kamla Nagar settlement, and this day will end with all your teeth intact."
Realizing that there would be no negotiating with this guy, the director turned to the sergeant of his elites.
"Professor Singh, can you and your team handle all twenty of them?"
The professor next to him shook his head.
"Most of them are not fighters. Take that guy Khanna for example. He is just level 8. But five among them are elites."
The director smiled, only five real enemies then.
"What levels?"
The smile disappeared the instant he heard the reply.
"I can't see any of their levels."
The stocky man saw the color disappear from the director's face and threatened them one last time, hoping he could avoid the fighting. His reason was simple, there was no experience to be gained in a fight where he was not allowed to kill.
"Last chance professor. I throw a mean punch, and while I promise to hold back, I can't guarantee I won't accidentally blow someone's face off. I gained five new levels in all the fighting I did since morning, and am not quite used to my new strength, or my specialization."
Neither the director nor the sergeant knew whether the stocky man accidentally let his level slip, or it was his plan all along, but everyone who cared about the university students felt a shiver run down their arm.
That included Mr. Khanna and a few other members of the delegation.
Their talks were over, and the group left, intending to come back with an army. There was an agreement to use only blunt weapons, but no one on the side of the university found any relief in that promise.
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After the delegation left, there was a lot of argument between the assembled leadership of the university. They were on the verge of surrender when Dr. Singh looked east in alarm and pointed.
"A massive group is approaching us."
Everyone looked where he was pointing, and saw it.
A procession.
A procession of 200,000 burqa-clad women and young children streamed into the college ground, passing right through the territory of the Kamla Nagar settlement. The residents of the recently victorious settlement couldn't help but stare at the caravan, uncertain of what to do. They noticed the bundles of clothes, food, and other daily needs that the women and children carried, and realized what was happening.
Refugees.
The fighting in this part of the city hadn't been as brutal as the one in Jafrabad, and despite knowing that everyone was level one, even the stocky man refused to attack.
So, the procession entered the college campus unmolested.
As the group arrived at the base of the bastion where the director of the college stood, one strongly built woman came out of the crowd and climbed up to the roof. Only once she was in front of the director did she take off her burka, and the director recognized the man who had been disguised as a woman.
Aadil Khan.
"Mr. Khan, why are you here? And who are all these people."
Aadil Khan explained the events of the day, ending with how the men of Jafrabad sacrificed their lives to buy the women and children time to escape. After he had finished recalling the events of the day, he made a request.
"My plan hinges on this one last thing. Your college needs to swear fealty and relinquish its bastions to us."
And so, for the second time today, the director received an ostensibly polite request to surrender. And for the second time, he refused.
Aadil spoke.
"I come bearing a request for aid and a gift, but not a shred of personal ambition. I have 5 days' worth of accumulated settlement points from 370 bastions, points we had hoarded for an emergency but were unable to use because of that re-election situation. I am not asking you to make me the owner of this settlement. Surrender your settlement to us, and I will leave my position as the representative. We will then elect one of your students as the representative instead. Someone acceptable to both of us."
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A lot of furious debate followed, with Aadil insistent on making his daughter the representative, and the director vehemently disagreeing.
Two hours later, a decision was finally made. A decision that brought an end to a series of plots, secrets, and betrayals. A decision that changed a student's life forever.
A chain of events spanning five long days, touching the lives of millions of Hindus and Muslims, centered around a father-son duo and two humans who trusted their stewards, all culminating here with a clueless 21-year-old girl.
A 21-year-old girl who had no idea that she was about to be in charge of 200,000 refugees, and a settlement with crippling overpopulation and food shortage.
That liability, of course, would be more than adequately offset by the two assets that came with the Jafrabad settlement.
The first was the gift Aadil mentioned, the enviable wealth of nearly 4 million settlement points. It included the initial lump sum amount of 20K SPs all the 370 bastions had received, as well as the additional 1000 SPs accumulated per day. Much of the starting amount was spent on castles, and calling the stewards a subset of the stewards every day had been expensive too, but even after all these expenditures, the amount saved by that many bastions was stupendous from the perspective of such a small settlement.
The second was an asset Aadil hadn't mentioned but was more valuable among the two. The protection of an elite battle-hardened squad led by Aadil's own son, Shahid Khan.
Even the shadow of the level 29 Sniper Sergeant who was now ranked 273 on the global leaderboard would deter all but the most motivated of enemies.
The 21-year-old girl, of course, was none other than Zoya's closest friend and a two-time Director's Award recipient, Neha Sharma.