“Amateurs study strategy, Professionals study logistics”

- Omar Bradley

The shuttle rocked as it lowered itself to the ground, the body of the Valkyrie rattling and groaning slightly as it did before it finally juddered to a halt on it’s skis.

Private Emelia Bailey shuffled her shoulders, finally feeling relieved before the corporal’s piercing yells filled the cargo bay, ordering them all to get up and be ready to march properly or else he’d have their heads. Emelia brushed her curls of black hair out of her soft pink face and sighed under her breath.

She quickly pulled herself up, picking up her R-10 rifle and putting the sling on her shoulder, straightening her posture and marching out with the rest in formation.

The area around them was so green and fresh, the sky clear apart from some large puffy clouds that drifted overhead. The plants were mostly ones she could recognise as ones like that she saw in southern England during her preparatory training week before being put on standby to come here, though there were a few outliers. Like the large, brown mushrooms that mixed with the trees in little clearings, its “roots” growing over old rotten trees that had turned to blackened mush, and there were these trees made all up of thick branches with long leaves and weird flowers spurting out of them. It was all so… Surreal…

She had to snap her head back forwards before the corporal shouted at her again. They were a part of the second wave to land, the first being a load of marines and engineers securing the area and setting up some dirt patches for landing spots, a few communications arrays linking into large tents and some central base area. Unfortunately, they’d be putting up their own tents.

They stopped at an empty spot far away, with the corporal and some engineer lieutenant giving some quick information on pitching their tents, and what time the briefing tent would be ready for their squad. They were just a basic infantry squad, but she had this sinking feeling that they’d be involved in the large marked out area that she swore was being prepared into a makeshift runway. First proper deployment and she’d be spending the first week of it with a shovel.

And after the two finally stopped speaking and walked off to do some form of paperwork or NCO briefing with the other newcomers everyone was able to finally slump out of their rigid poses.

“Fuck, is he ever going to get out of that persona any time soon.” Another woman called out, the squad 2IC, Lance Corporal Alexandra Patterson. She was a freckled ginger, standing tall amongst the rest of her squad, chuckling at her own quip, s fair number of the other squaddies laughed with her as the slipped off their packs and started to unfurl their tents. Well, the two of tents, with five men to each. Thank fuck she wasn’t with the corporal.

They the other people seemed to have a dynamic with each other, everyone apart from her and one burly lad who was another newcomer. Everyone else had gone through hell and back trekking across Siberia with their L85s, in their Boxer, in the war. Now their squad had two more men in it, they had R-10s, were now riding in a Panther and on another world but it all seemed the same to them. But yet, she felt like she was just a slot in who didn’t quite go with the rest…

“Come on Emelia, we aren’t putting up our tent all by ourselves mate!” The Lance Corporal called over, beckoning her over.

She slinked over, slipping of her kit and getting down to work with putting in the ground pegs, the bearded grenadier passing her the pegs and as he then went back to speaking with another squaddie in Gaelic. She never really did well in that at school and mostly fell asleep whenever it was taught to her, much to her aunt’s dismay whenever she came round.

“So, Emelia, I don’t think we’ve ever established we’re you’re from ‘ave we?”

She looked around to realise she’d just sat next to the lance corporal. She was in her late twenties, the aforementioned red hair, grey eyes and angular features with her voice carrying Glaswegian accent.

Emelia just shrugged, then realised she was talking to a superior officer technically and tensed up, “Well, uh, just from Aberdeenshire, just outside of the city.”

“Ah, I had an uncle from around there, I think he worked on the oil derricks till they shutdown. Not sure where he’s at now.”

She decided to bite the bullet and buy into this small talk. “You’ve not been home for a bit then?”

“Well he isn’t anywhere near Glasgow but, yeah,” she sighed, “Not really been back for a while, the closest I think was when I was in Edinburgh.”

She remembered the parades all around the world when the war had ended and guessed she’d must have been in one of the smaller ones in Edinburgh when she visited there, so close but yet so far… “Did they not let you have any leave then?”

“For about a week they did, which I spent in Spain, but that was it before they called us back for drills, then for the weird prep thing, then actually telling us what was going on and shipping us all of there! Don’t ya love command?”

“Well I-“

“You’ll learn to hate then, don’t worry.” Alexandra laughed.

“I already hate the fucking drill instructor-“

“That’s their job, don’t be too hard on them, they make you hate them to get you to bond with the other squaddies and share the hatred of them around.”

Emelia felt a smile grow across her face, though she regretted not being able to be with them from the start still…

It didn’t take too much longer to put the tents up, with plenty of other squads arriving and pitching theirs up too, shuttles constantly landing and taking off of the minimalistic shuttle port. Every shuttle brought either some more troops, cargo in the form of food, fuel, batteries, ammunition, weapons, building material, camp equipment and the occasional small construction vehicle. Miniature trucks pulling trailers hauling them away to where they were needed.

After a few minutes of chatting, they were then marching to the briefing tent and being told that they weren’t working on the runway but instead keeping look out and helping shift some dirt at a under construction landing pad. Which could get a light SSTO landing with some heavier equipment by the end of the day. After that they would be apart of a spearhead charging right towards an enemy city, no, the capital with possibly thousands of angry knights ready to charge at their machine guns. So not that much of an issue now that she thought about it.

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The digging was an issue however, getting the short end of the stick it was of course their section with them now covered in dirt, digging the holes. Doing so for what turned out to be the next six hours, digging and packing dirt… Admittedly with a lunch break, with their MREs at the site.

But at least they were out in moderate weather, in a stunning new world, after being in Earth’s space port about four days ago. The realisation of that kept hitting her, as it must have for everyone else, something that was only a fantasy for when some of them were kids, was now actual reality. Even if it didn’t quite manifest as she guessed many of them expected it’d turn out.

More shuttles kept landing with now the rare roar signalling a Hercules space plane dropping crates full of supplies, marines on cars riding out to catch any that strayed off target, which were a lot of them.

There was one thought that came through her head every time they came and that was that surely all of this was giving away their location? Granted this place was sparsely populated with no RADAR in sight, but still? Though… They should have satellite imagery of the kingdom live fed to high ups offices so maybe this was part of the plan? Draw them to here so they could bomb them to oblivion?

Though, as Alexandra kept reminding her, officers were not necessarily the smartest around and she shouldn’t expect them to make good decisions, rather ones that sounded good at the time.

But as the continued to chat between each other as they worked, day turning to dusk as they finally moved off to the canteen to have dinner. While they all sat down, drinking cups of tea as the night grew chilly, they saw a streak of light in the sky. As they watched, minutes passing by the streak died down, parachutes deploying from the large dropship, engines firing as the thing finally set itself down. The tall rocket sitting down on the rough landing pad they had helped to make.

It was somewhat satisfying watching it all. Shame everyone in a few days would become a lot more stressful…

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Nathaniel looked out from the top of the keep onto the long column of levies and men at arms solemnly marching into the camp, their numbers snaking down the road and off into the distance. The sound of shoes and boots stomping on the cobbles drowning out the noises of the camp.

It was motley selection of troops made up of all they could gather from the towns and villages that they passed, and whoever had managed to respond to the call early enough. Their banners were dull when compared to the bright colours of the knights who had arrived on horseback with him the day before. With those banners now swaying in the wind by their tents and above him on the keep’s flagpole. The royal guard and the bulk of the other troops from the capital had been left there with most of the knights here coming from his own retinue and a few local lords who had followed him.

Overall, it was a sizable force numbering four thousand already, with a group from the church’s own forces set to arrive with some more levies tomorrow. And the day after that would be his secret weapon, the cannons along with a contingent of hand gunners and his mounted pistoleers regiment. Their firepower, while according to the scriptures only a pale imitation of his enemy’s, would still surely be able to cut down waves of the incoming hoard.

Though most of his regular footmen were of dubious quality… The peasant levies currently marching in had only the bare minimum of equipment, armed with spears and billhooks and armoured with only padded shirts and hats. They’d be quick to die in any sort of encounter and he did not have the desire, money, or present equipment to give them anything better. Anyway, they’d probably steal it all…

The wind rustled through his hair as he continued to think, the sun continuing to slip down under the horizon. The next few days would involve a lot of planning, wargaming with his retinue, camp organisation, organising of scouting parties and hoping that all he knew about his enemy was right. He had been so far. They had spotted unusual comets around this area and some sounds like that of machine that arrived at the capital could be heard in the distance throughout the day. It was unsettling…

But staying up here was only delaying the planning and the wind was growing cold anyway.

Walking down a few flights of stairs brough him into a little room that had been converted into their planning room. On the table was a map of the local area that had been taken out of the king’s library before they left. To it’s side was a crudely drawn map of the area immediately around the bridge and their keep with various markings on it indicating the various planned defences.

Around the desk were a few low-ranking lords, a couple of then noble commanders of the men at arms regiments, a commander from the order of fire knights and finally Galrac.

Galrac was his Marshall and the only person he trusted other than himself to give competent orders out. The greying middle-aged man had served by his father’s side in his time and was by far the more competent commander. However, father’s specialities were always with negotiation and subterfuge rather than armed conflict.

Galrac nodded at Nathaniel as he came up to the table. His armour clanked as he did so, having not taken it off yet after commanding a scouting mission to clear the area around their position earlier in the day.

“Good afternoon sir, I hope you have cleared your head a little as news from our scouting parties sent to the enemy camp aren’t encouraging.”

Nathaniel raised an eybrow as he looked at the Marshall and the faces of the others gather around, “Go on Galrac…”

Galrac cleared his throat. Galrac was never nervous around him like other people, but whenever he delivered troubling news, he always had the tendency to announce the fact before he actually said what it was. “Our parties were unable to get close enough to the camp to observe properly it due to heavy enemy patrols. Those patrols are armed with weapons and armour like which we have not seen. However, they don’t seem like the armoured giants that were guarding their leaders when you met them at the Prophets Founding. But they managed to find a nearby hill to observe some of their landings, and, well… They’re incredibly frequent though we can’t quite make out how many people each one brings, nor the amount of supplies they can bring in one.”

“But did the scouts give an estimate of their numbers?”

“They gave a rough number of somewhere between five hundred and seven hundred but rising exponentially.”

The duke’s head fell into his hands, with his elbows slumping onto the table. It was only five hundred but after two days of their comets coming down? And “growing exponentially” was not something he wanted to hear. Not at all. “Thank you Galrac for the honesty of your report. But- But did the scouts see any metal beasts from their position?”

Galrac nodded, “Only small ones however, they have no idea what they are for but some of them seemed to be, well, moving dirt.”

“Moving dirt!?” He choked, before quickly regaining his composure, “Well I suppose it makes sense that they have those sorts of machines, but- They must be for making fortifications…”

“A clever assessment sir, I was thinking something similar as well.”

“I suppose they must be planning for a long campaign… Either that or that we might attack their camp soon…”

“You think they might know we have anticipated our actions?”

“Either that or they’re just paranoid…”

“I hope so sir. I would prefer it if they only had the unknown weapons from daemons rather than be smart and have those weapons as well.”

Another noble at the table clear their throat, this one a younger noble and commander of one of the men at arms regiments, “Sir, should we review you on the plans for our defences? We have drawn up on based on your recommendations.”

Nathaniel looked up, a temporary distraction presenting itself. “Yes, go on…”

“Well, across the edge of the valley small that goes down to the river we have earthen ramparts with positions for the cannons. We have plans for hidden pits to be dug along the sides of the road leading to the bridge, and we are going to form a barricade on the bridge itself with a platform for men to stand on behind it.”

Looking down at the map, it would completely cut off the chances of the enemy being able to cross at any other point within seven miles. And further away the valley grew deeper with the river wider to the west, and to the east were high hills and denser forests. But still, there needed to be a backup, the risk of them overwhelming their defences is too great…

“Galrac, do we have any gunpowder and long fuses spare?”

Galrac’s eyes frowned, “We have a handful of sacks of gunpowder already but most of those sorts of materials will be coming in two days.”

Nathaniel locked eyes with Galrac, “Do you think you can have some men place those charges onto the bridge and have fuses set up so we can blow the bridge?”

“We could… But any attempt to repair the bridge will take years possibly… I assume this is in case they break through?”

Nathaniel nodded, “Yes, it is, and we should pray that we won’t have to.”