Chapter 331
Qualen Woods, Archduchy of Rebirth
Darthar-Asaria Trade Route
"Well, they certainly seem unhappy." Said Alexandra as she smiled at the lieutenant, wearing a badge identifying him as part of the tattered remnants of the Kaidani light cavalry that Sarth had more or less absorbed into its own skirmisher and recon units. "Thank you LT, please, stay a while in case we have any more questions."
The officer nodded, and stepped back from the table, trying to fade into the background. Which she could sympathize with, since this was a war council with their majesties participating. Poor bastard had to be feeling vertigo delivering a report to them right about now.
At least Allya and Pyn were mostly keeping silent. Military matters weren't their focus right now, and they knew it. Besides which, the archduchess was perfectly fine leaving it into the more competent hands of the dungeon core, and wasn't shy about it, while Alexandra rejoiced in letting them handle economics. She was an Arcadia now, she had a flair for this stuff, but nowhere near Pyn's negotiating acumen or Allya's leadership quality.
The king leaned forward as he spoke.
"I must say, I did not expect this...venture to be so successful. I have yet to see this 'Mackie' of yours, but it seems formidable out of all proportions of what I expected, given its armaments."
"That's because it's not the main threat." Alexandra grimaced as the King gave her a questionning look. "It's a force multiplier and a tank. No, not in that way. Bad wording. It's a...fire magnet. Ton for ton it is immesureably tougher than the spider tanks that accompany it. And that's the point. It is actually relatively lightly armed for its size-" She could have easily given it heavier hardware, replacing the autocannons with field guns and some of the machineguns with autocannons. "-but I opted instead to reinforce its survivability. So it is a towering monster of metal that overshadows everything else..."
"And thus naturally draws all of the attacks in a panicked battle." Completed the Queen as she rubbed her chin, a smile on her face.
"Precisely." Alexandra nodded towars the sovereign. "Thus we suffer very little, if any attrition, as the spider tanks' wards are enough to receive what little punishment is not directed towards the Mackie. While they, in truth, are the main threat. There is but one Mackie after all-" Here, at least. "-its offensive potential is limited."
"Indeed. I must remark that you seem very focused on...manipulating them." Said the King. "To slow down, and seemingly draw more elite and heavier units forward."
"Slowing them down is a key part of our entire plan overall. The more cautious and paranoid they are, the better. As much as we have expanded the road network to accomodate our troops, we still have a significant amount of civilians either accompanying the army or being evacuated. If they moved at their full pace, they would catch us. Thus, my primary objective is to keep them from doing so, through any means necessary. As for drawing their elites forward, there are several reasons. The first one is that human wave tactics with poor equipped slaves will fail against me no matter what. No matter how many bodies you throw at them the only way to overrun a line of machineguns with that is through trickery or making the guns run out of bullets. Thus, I seek to draw the elites that could provide the trickery or the shield that could make it succeed."
That, and Allya's conversation with that professor gave her hope that Rook might break the brands soon-ish. If he did before a decisive battle was reached, it might save hundreds of thousands of slaves. Were that to happen, every one of Sunrise's elite and regulars killed or in the throes of resurrection sickness would be one less slaughtering them as they rose up or attempted to flee.
"Do not underestimate those slaves." Warned the Queen. "You of all people should realize that an army without a morale to break is a terrifying weapon. I learned this the hard way."
"I know, and for that matter, I agree, with a caveat however. An army without morale to break is a terrifying weapon, if you can capitalize upon it. And Sunrise isn't. More importantly, they cannot truly capitalize upon it." She waved her hand dismissively. "Oh yes, I agree, you could see using them as meat shields as doing just that, but to truly be effective, to truly use this to its fullest potential, they would have to equip, arm and fully train their slaves. And they aren't. They can't."
"Why not?"
"Because the brands are temporary. It's what has governed their entire war plan so far. It's why they're rushing after this army to crush it. In a few months, their entire force is going to start crumbling. More importantly, their garrisons will start crumbling. They need to capture territory to refresh their main army, and they need to force a surrender, or at least take out those that could still raise an army to threaten their elites-" AKA Rebirth, since Sarth would never be able to muster the strength, hence why the southern army had been so small. "-because if they don't, all the ground they've taken will rise up."
"They could simply enslave more people to refresh the garrisons."
"Enslave who? They've already drained most of the able bodied people for the army or the garrisons themselves, and all the rest have either run for the hills or are too important to be taken for either of the purposes. Not to mention, anyone left, important or not, will run if they know the brands will falter, and that knowledge will get around fast if it hasn't already." That would quickly become a problem too, as a significant number of people hadn't died from Sunrise's depredations, but due to the monsters haunting said hills. The only reason it wasn't turning into a complete slaughter is that the adventurers, not the guild itself, but the people within it, had made it their mission to go 'monster hunting', in truth defending these ad hoc settlements and giving them breathing room, at the cost of their own lives. Alexandra might despise the guild, but she was starting to respect the hell out of the adventurers and the attendants helping them setup 'monster hunting quests'. The quests paid almost nothing, they were insanely hazardous, what with the real danger of being targeted by guerillas or Sunrise's punitive expeditions alike, but they did them anyway.
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"An excellent analysis." The King leaned back into his chair as he spoke up again. "I assume that the point you are making is that if they truly trained and equipped the slaves, once the brands faltered they would either have to execute them, or risk creating their own rebel army?"
"Precisely. They could enslave them with a worker's brand of course, and I think that was their original plan, but to send them where? If they won they could simply send part of the army towards Sunrise to escort them, but they cannot afford to split their forces, and any slave sent back without a significant escort is either going to end up mercy killed, or whoever holds the leash will be taken hostage by guerillas. Even using them to rebuild the areas they've destroyed would be dangerous, as the garrisons would be faltering themselves, and thus quickly become incapable of protecting work parties. Hell, they're having trouble doing it right now and they're at full strength."
Everyone nodded at that. More and more reports were trickling in, as the resistance within the conquered territories organized. Organized a bit too quickly and professionally, as a matter of fact, which was leading Alexandra to believe that Rook maybe helping a bit from behind the scenes. Regardless, the situation was a thousand times worse for Sunrise than they'd even realized. Supply convoys still got through, and the garrisons were secure in their castles, but with neutral nobles joining the crown, throwing open the gates of their fortresses and armories to house and help the guerillas, they were going from 'mildly annoying' to 'fucking nightmares'. It was incredible what a secure base of operation, stable soruce of food and new weapons, not to mention professional armorers and soldiers to train you could do to a resistance movement. Said neutrals were also buying themselves a lot of goodwill with that, even without sending out their own household troops just yet, which was probably why they were doing it in the first place.
If only the ones in the army were so helpful, though they seemed to have taken the lesson to heart, and were keeping a very low profile currently. They had fought as well as anyone else, bar the Kaidanis, during the battle of the bridge, as some had called it, despite the fact that it had been more of an ambush and the bridge hadn't even been in sight, so there was that. They also seemed to have bent under the duke's hammer and been integrated into the duchy's troops, with the ever handy pretext of 'the archduchess has given me command, and the archduchess now owns your vassalage. Do you wish to obey or do I need to explain to her you refuse her authority?'. With Allya's reputation, and her own stunt when she had gone to protect CQ, no one was willing to take that risk, no matter the size of their inflated ego.
"So, what do you intend to do to these elites, now that you have drawn even more of them forth?" Asked Manson, as the duke finally spoke up.
"That's where things become more risky. As they increase the quality and quantity of the troops screening their main force, my armored units will start having trouble engaging them without a major risk. Some traps will work of course, but now that they have their mages front and center, it won't take them too much time to learn how to detect most of them. That means we'll need, well, to send an actual force to harass them, and keep them from gaining momentum."
"Not a small one."
"Nope."
The duke smiled.
"You wish to attack an army that outnumbers us ten to one, and not only that, but strike directly at their best and most alert units?"
"It's the same as the convoy escort dilemna. We can concentrate our forces at any one point we wish, while they have to guard all approaches. But yes, basically."
Manson outright laughed.
"You're never short on guts, lady Crystal, I will give you that."
"What if they manage to pin down the harassing force?" Said the Queen. "I believe in your 'Mackie' and your tanks' abilities to escape, but what of those accompanying them? You will have to use cavalry if you wish to strike fast after all."
Alexandra nodded.
"An excellent question, your majesty. And the answer is simple. We'll use airships and marines to do diversionary attacks. They lack air superiority, and thus their own ships are being held in reserve, letting us strike at our leisure. We can come forward and either force them to contest us with ground and air forces. And if they refuse to rise to the bait, well then I suppose our airships will do plenty of damage on their own, won't they?"
"They will wisen up eventually. Find a counter."
"The goal is to force them to continuously find counters. Just like they did with the gas mines, or the Mackie raids. Because every time they do, it slows them down. Their current formation isn't made for maximum safety, it's what is acceptable losses for the speediest march they can get." Alexandra shrugged. "The more they turtle up, the more time we have, the better our position, and they know it. The goal is to give them no choice in granting us that time. Then giving them a knock out punch once we've had enough breathing room to rebuild a full force."
"Speaking of..." Manson cleared his throat. "We have not seen any sign of the new reinforcements yet."
"I am still working on it, your grace. Besides which, a trickle of new hardware might let them know what is coming, and our troops are managing just fine right now."
"I do not dispute that, lady Crystal, but morale may suffer. Everyone in the army expects you to be the decisive factor-" A nice way of saying they were praying to her for salvation, some worryingly more literally than others. "-but the lack of new reinforcements is worrying them."
Alexandra sighed. She knew that was going to come up eventually. She had some prototypes and reserves to throw as bones, but still...
"I will see what I can do. I have some of the weapons Sunrise has already seen ready, I will ship them forward." She raised a finger. "But not all of them at once. I do wish for Sunrise to realize what is coming." Or for them to realize that she'd basically halted production on damned near everything as she got her industrial base upgraded with the fabricators.
The duke nodded.
"That is more than fair, lady Crystal. And even a trickle of reinforcements will prove we can count on you, and that we are still in this fight to win."
"Good. Now, if the military part of this meeting is done, Allya, Pyn, I believe you had something for us on the economic and diplomacy front?"