Chapter 124: Launch

With his back against a double-doored entryway to a four-story apartment complex, and with a behemoth of a man bearing down on him from the front, Alex realized he was trapped in a close quarters fight. There wasn’t enough space behind him to step away or dodge, and thus, offense was now his best defense. Aggressively, he stepped forward and whirled his arms around, tearing his summoned blade across the throat of a member of the Guild of Gentlemen just as the man was set to bring his hammer slamming down on top of Alex’s skull. A splatter of blood preceded the halting of motion, and then he gargled and wheezed as he died.

At around the same time, a chorus of gunshots rang out, and Alex watched as a countless number of the enemy’s infantry were riddled with bullets. A few returned fire, and Alex managed to position himself in front of one of his men, protecting the level-1 soldier from imminent death. Yet others were not so lucky. Even still, their overwhelming force proved too much for the city’s defenders to handle, and it looked like, at least at the street level, they’d eliminated the Guild of Gentlemen’s forces here on 6th avenue and Ocean Street.

“Time to clear,” he said. Gesturing with his sword even as he spoke, he called out for various sergeants to get ready to lead their squads into the apartments for door-to-door clearing operations—but not before shouting out in warning to several of his men to get behind cover. “What do you think you’re doing standing in the middle of the street? You’re asking to get shot!”

Alex tried to remain patient. The darkness of war had a certain numbing effect on one’s civility. Yet he had made himself perfectly clear on a number of occasions: level-1 infantry and low-level guild soldiers needed to stay close to cover, and only those who were level 25 and up were permitted to march in the open—especially when capturing another street. Already, they’d sustained an unacceptable number of casualties due to fire coming from the windows.

I wasn’t meant to do this, he thought to himself. This is not what I wanted. Why am I so adept at it?

Alex had been given control of what had been called “Justice Company,” which had been merged with the remaining forces of Siege Company. The result was that he had just shy of five-hundred men and women under his command, the vast majority of which were ordinary, level-1 troops around his age or in some cases younger. In addition, he had two armored tanks and an armored personnel carrier providing him support.

Now, in what was more or less one gigantic double-sided line that stretched from the head to the foot of the block, he at last gave the command to breach. The sound of boots pattering down on concrete echoed in the early-morning light as his troops began entering the various apartment complexes three squads apiece and got to work on securing the street.

“Sergeant Marshing, you and your men are with me,” Alex said.

Jakz Marshing nodded. “Understood, Sir Oren.”

Jakz had been part of the original invasion force under the direct command of Staff Sergeant Edrax, who it was believed had likely been KIA along with his squad’s sergeant; thus, he’d been promoted from corporal and now led in the man’s place. Along with two other squads, he followed behind Alex as they quickly darted up the stairs of an old, but humble apartment complex.

“We’re doing this the same as last time,” he said, pausing. “I don’t need you to—”

He paused as a frightened scream came over their communicators along with the audible sound of gunshots from one building over. “I don’t need you to protect me,” he finished. “If we encounter any leveled fighters, back away and let me handle it.”

Having spoken those words, Alex rapped his fist against the leftmost apartment door in the first-floor hallway. “This is Sir Alex Oren with the Lords of Justice. Open up!”

“Fuck off!” screamed a woman’s voice from behind the door. “This is my home. You have no right!”

“I don’t intend to trouble you, ma’am. We just want to make sure you don’t have any weapons in there.”

“Kiss my ass! Fuck all of you!”

Alex squeezed his hands into fists and tamped down on the disgust and guilt rising within him. “Ma’am, please open the door or I’m going to break it down.”

Silence.

Steeling his resolve, Alex sent his foot crashing forward, knocking the apartment door off its hinges and sending it crashing down onto the floor. Immediately, he narrowed his eyes and shouted, “Get back!” He shoved a man to his right and a woman to his left out of the way as hail of gunfire bounced off his chest and face. Inside, he saw that a mother and her two young sons had opened fire on him. Hastily, he darted forward, reached out, and ripped the weapon free from the woman, whose eyes widened in terror as she fell backwards and landed onto her rear. One of her two children, gripped by a panic, dropped his weapon. The other did not. Thus, Alex first snapped her rifle in half before ripping away the boy’s and kicking the third out of the room.

“Please,” she begged. “Don’t kill us!”

Alex looked over his shoulder. “Sergeant Marshing.”

“Yes, Sir Oren.”

“Place these three under arrest.”

“No!" the mother screamed. “That’s worse than death!”

Alex turned his eyes on her. “You’re wrong. I’m not with the Royal Roses. You’ll be going to a POW camp run by the Lords of Justice.”

“What’s…what’s the difference?” she asked, clearly petrified.

“The difference,” Alex explained, “is that you’ll be set free unharmed once this war is over.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

Alex understood her fear. It was only natural. After all, the Royal Roses, having been victims of a terrible terrorist attack, were out for blood. Reports of mistreatment, abuse, and neglect at their POW camp were not only accurate, but if anything, were likely understating the severity of the situation. The Lords of Justice, on the other hand, were not interested in revenge and could reliably be trusted to treat their prisoners with dignity.

As three of his troops moved to secure and arrest the prisoners, the sound of gunfire rang out from what he estimated to be the apartment three doors down. Alex clenched his teeth. Due to time constraints, he couldn’t be everywhere at once. Each floor of each building was virtually guaranteed to end in death or serious injury for those under his command. Yet these sweeps were entirely necessary to bringing order back to Shadowfall Coast.

What were they thinking? he wondered, shaking his head. How did the Guild of Gentlemen imagine this was going to go?

With every North Bastian guild united in opposition to the Guild of Gentlemen, there was never any chance of Shadowfall Coast enduring the siege. The capture of the city was now only a matter of when, not if. The only question that still remained was how many more people were going to have to die before this horrible chapter of human ugliness came to an end.

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The combined might of their newly arrived forces, along with the continued bombardment from the sea by Sir Haisel Ragora, meant that the Guild of Gentlemen were steadily being driven back. It should be obvious to all of them by now that they had lost—yet they refused to surrender. They were going to drag this on until the bitter end, and thanks to a loyal, devoted population, the citizens were more than happy to fight and die for the guild, too.

We need to end this quickly. Let this be done with!

Speaking into his Comm, Alex said, “First floor clear. Moving to second.” He paused to briefly exchange information with Sergeant Marshing then said, “Fifteen POWs. Three enemy KIA. Two of ours wounded. Need prisoner transport and medivac.”

“Understood, Sir Oren.”

Alex left the apartment and returned to the stairwell, ready to repeat the process again.

******

With his fingers interlocked and his head resting on his chin, Vim sat in perfect silence in the 75th floor of the tallest building in the primary city of Giant’s Fall, the Rose Spire. Surrounding him were information screens and his top strategic personnel as he listened intently to each and every update. He hadn’t slept since the dinner, and he refused to rest until his body forced him to do so. Until then, he was subsisting on caffeine and amphetamines, struggling to keep alert and to manage things as best as he possibly could.

This won’t go on for much longer, he thought. It can’t possibly.

Shifting his eyes without moving his head, he briefly glanced out of the window nearest to his leather office chair where he sat at a large, oval-shaped table so that he could steal a glimpse of the metropolis he fought so hard to maintain. Though Giant’s Fall was not a flashy, glitzy city like Tomb of Fire or an upscale, elite corporate paradise like Varda’s Lair, it was still the most important place in the world to him.

To some, Giant’s Fall came across as an average city: nothing more, nothing less. It had reasonable levels of crime, a fairly strong economy, and a slightly above-average education system. It was often compared to what Whispery Woods had been more than a century ago: a reasonable, affordable city with a solid infrastructure that offered plenty of opportunities for work and growth.

To Vim, however, it was so much more. To him, it was a city of laborers and a city of grit. A resilient, strong people who worked difficult jobs and retired comfortably. He loved the people of this city. For this reason, he knew that if he were in the same position as the enemy, he would never subject them to this kind of drawn-out, unnecessary bloodshed. If there ever came a situation where Vim understood that his end was near, he would not drag the people of Giant’s Fall down with him.

But that was exactly what Sir Alistair Morrison had chosen to do. For reasons unknown, the man refused to surrender, choosing instead to arm his headstrong populace and have them die for no purpose or reason. And given his guild’s rage over the terrorist attack in Ogre’s Axe, even Vim himself could not stop the mistreatment taking place in the POW camp. His people were viciously angry and it was all Vim could do just to ensure there were no extrajudicial executions.

“How are things proceeding?” he asked.

“Steadily,” replied Norc O’cral, an Orcish intelligence officer who had also participated in the raid against the dragon. Vim had very much wanted him to participate in the siege, but he knew he’d have a better chance wringing water from a dried leaf than he did in getting an Orc to participate in a war. Instead, Norc had remained here in the central command room and helped Vim coordinate with his units on the ground.

Vim rubbed his chin as he studied a digital map that had been projected onto the middle of the table, which used color-coded dots to represent the advancement of their various forces. Although “steadily” was a fair description of the progress being made, it also failed to capture the dire insufficiency of it. Put simply, everyone—be it his guild or any of the others—had completely underestimated the willingness of the citizens of Shadowfall Coast to fight and die for the Guild of Gentlemen.

To say this was unusual would be putting it mildly. The vast majority of humans cared little which guild happened to control which territory, and such shifts in territorial possession, though much rarer in recent decades, was something that still took place every once in a while. It had always been the case that, as long as they did not feel personally under attack, humanity was willing to let the guilds play out their struggles in isolation, and they did not involve themselves personally.

But that all seemed to have changed.

Street by street, and block by block, citizens of Shadowfall Coast were firing on their forces, slowing their advance. Entire families, including children, were fighting to the death. And why?

Because gnomes had the audacity to exist. Because not everyone in North Bastia was human. Because if the territory fell into the hands of any other guild, they might have to see people who did not look like them.

Were they truly so afraid of having a Dwarf or Orcish neighbor that they were willing to die just to prevent it? By all available data, the most violent, homicidal race of people on Galterra were human beings—and it wasn’t even close. Yet the Guild of Gentlemen’s fearmongering had reached such a fever pitch that mothers were arming their pre-pubescent children with battle rifles. It was despicable. It was a bubble that would have had to burst sooner or later. But until then, it would be a painful, horrifying process.

However, as his communicator flashed red from where it rested on the table, he wondered if perhaps things might come to an end sooner than expected after all.

“It’s him,” Norc said, baring his fangs. “Sir Alistair Morrison.”

Vim nodded, though he did so slowly. Despite this being a voice call, he adjusted his tie and sat up straighter. He reached across the table and thumbed the red button. “Sir Morrison,” he said, his tone even and neutral. “I was hoping you’d call sooner. I’m guessing you’ve come to your senses.”

“I have, Sir Alazar,” said the voice on the other end of the line. He too sounded just as neutral and calm, which was remarkable for a man whose end was now set in stone. It was well beyond Vim’s power to prevent his inevitable execution. His crimes were too numerous and too heinous for the UCH to pardon.

“Too many have died. Tell me, are you ready to end this?”

“I am,” he replied.

Vim grunted. “Then let’s keep this simple, shall we? The hostilities can end at once pending your immediate, unconditional surrender. In addition, you will agree that the child of Peter Brayspark, Sir Peter V, will be rightfully made heir. We will allow your guild to keep control of Tomb of Fire despite how easily it would be for us to take it from you, and the brunt of the blame for this will be placed on you. Furthermore, I can guarantee both in voice and in writing that you will not be tortured, mistreated, or abused, and if the UCH opts for capital punishment, you will be euthanized humanely. Those are our terms.”

“I see.”

Vim waited for him to accept. Then he waited a little bit longer. A few seconds dragged on to nearly a minute, and one minute dragged on to almost two. With each passing moment, the overall mood in the room became increasingly more unsettling and bizarre. It was understandable that the man would need a moment to process all of this, but Sir Morrison’s silence was quickly escalating from uncomfortable to intolerable.

“Sir Morrison?” Vim asked.

“Yes, Sir Alazar. I hear you.”

“Do you accept our terms?”

A very slow, perhaps even bitter sigh came from the Comm, and the menace in it immediately put Vim in a state of unease. “I thought this part would be easier. Yet here I am, in the moment, and even with all my resolve, I’m still trying not to buckle under the weight of it.”

“Save it for your therapist,” Vim said curtly. “All I’d like to hear from you is a yes or a—“

“No, I will not surrender, Sir Alazar. Humanity will not concede a winning fight.”

Vim frowned, unable to believe what he was hearing. “Are you a fucking moron?” he blurted out, his patience lost. “A winning fight? I’m guessing you’ve lost a bit of your sanity in addition to your nerve. Why, if not to surrender, would you contact me and waste my time?”

“I’ve called you as an act of grace,” he said. “I’ve called to give you one final chance to surrender. You and the rest of the guilds. You will stand down and leave Shadowfall Coast immediately. If you do not, then twenty-five minutes from the moment this conversation expires, I will call down an ancient God on your city of Ogre’s Axe, and your guild will be crushed by a power greater than any dragon—a force not seen since the days of Earth.”

Vim slammed his fist down onto the table. “Cut the shit, Alistair. Now you’ve gone and pissed me off. I’m tired of this. You’re surrounded. Your city is falling. Surrender or pay the price.”

“Consider the first shot a warning,” he said. “If you do not surrender after the first, there will be a second—and then a third.”

“What in the name of the Gods are you—”

The light turned from red to yellow, and then off. The conversation had ended. “What do you think?” he asked Norc.

The Orc frowned. “I think the man has lost his wits, Sir Alazar. His sanity has clearly failed him.”

“Fucking lunatic is right,” Vim growled. “All right, continue operations as is. He asked for this.”

******

Sir Alistair Morison did not blink. He only spoke. “Launch the ICBM. Target is Ogre’s Axe.”