Three

Mundane weapons meet magic.

Eleventh day of the seventh month, year 110560 of the imperial calendar (January 8th 2153).

5 tack south of the apes’ defensive line.

‘Well that seems to seal their fate.’ Said strategos Aera to his command staff. The lookouts reported that the apes weren’t forming instead, preferred to stay inside their trenches.

How foolish, he wanted to avoid unnecessary bloodshed but these apes were only barbarians, even if they had managed to make some astounding weapons against their dragons, the fact they haven’t formed to face his army demonstrated that even if their weapons were exceptional they lacked of any kind of true tactics or training. And with Heixisys partial success against their fleet, managing to set one of their ships ablaze and pushing the rest far from the coast, the annoying attacks of the automatons dropped in frequency.

These apes were just a bunch of barbarians that wouldn’t even know how to use their own slug throwers properly, probably only standing inside those holes waiting for his beast to jump on top of them, leaving only red soaked mud after the battle, just like the records showed what had happened in previous harvests of this world.

“What a shame.” Aera thought, he just hopped that the city would see reason once the army defending them was slaughtered and accept their fate as slaves.

‘Order the beast handlers to prepare to release the beasts as soon they are in range and the magicians to keep the shields as strong as possible, it doesn’t matter how much Celezite they expend.’

‘Yes my lord.’ Were the words utter by his command staff.

He has only 1 concern left, were the chariots speed, even if their mounted slug thrower can’t pierce their shields they could use them to scape, not that it would do anything but prolong the inevitable

UEI defensive line, Palmer Island, 7 km at the north.

‘Well, they are moving at least’ Said Colonel Yang

In the distance the enemy force was beginning to form. The officers recognized the tactics not from their time in the skirmishes against the human groups outside the government of the UEI but from their time in the educative institutions, Napoleonic formations from the times before industrialized war.

‘They don’t seem to be as primitive as we thought, they not only have the cannons show by reconnaissance, they have small arms’

‘They haven’t fired yet. For the look their range must be as bad as the black powder weapons from 3 centuries ago’ Said the Federov.

‘It would be wise to don’t assume anything about them. We are gambling too much in this plan of yours to bypass their shields’ Warned Yang.

‘Do we have any option? The bombers only managed to get at them before they raised their shields and for the looks they haven’t dropped them.’ Pointed Federov. ‘Besides I doubt that this shield could resist a carpet bombing.’

‘Maybe, but the heavy bombers are still hours away.’

‘Yang, you knew we needed to take advantage of the choke point that this valley provide to us and we have the option to withdraw to the defensive line set up by the Major Ramirez 20 km at the south of Palmer city and wait for the bombers.’

‘Yeah but that doesn’t make me feel better with such difference in numbers.’

‘Well, there are 15,000 troops from the continent in Palmer city and more arriving every hour if that makes you feel any better.’

‘It won’t matter if we can’t pierce their shields.’

‘The fighter drones of the aircraft carriers are destroying with sustained fire, we only have to pound these enough to do the same.’

‘We don’t even know if both shields work under the same principles.’

A sudden silence full of uncertainty befell on them, with only the sound of their staff organizing the troops in the background. Both were genuinely worried about that possibility but they didn’t have any option but try stop this alien menace.

‘I still don’t know what to think about them being elves.’ Said Federov.

‘Why? That doesn’t make this situation any stranger. They are aliens that came out of an ancient portal that used to be buried in the ice. I don’t find them being elves to be the weirdest thing in the whole situation.

‘True, but that makes this a lot more unsettling. I mean, for all we know this isn’t the first time they had come and that is the origin of the monsters in our mythologies.’

‘Once we defeat them the Science division will respond to that, but for now I’m more worried about this plan of yours. Sure it will work?’

‘It will, look.’

The first explosions rippled above the enemy lines before the sound of the firing artillery could be heard. Colonel Yang saw how the shells just exploded in middle air just above the elven army in a golden shimmering dome that became visible on top of elven army with each impact.

Far behind the trenches and their command post, in the artillery batteries, the crews began the mechanical process of loading certain specific kind of shell.

Most thought this kind of shells would be unnecessary, but were the delivered by the resupply convoys sent by Major Ramirez in large quantities, and specific request of Colonel Federov, apparently a bid to defeat the enemy shields that had frustrated the air strikes for the past days.

Some people in the artillery crews were rather disturbed by the necessity to employ this kind of attack but were sternly reminded by his comrades how the invading force refused to negotiate, just arriving and killing people without even trying to establish contact first.

And while the moral objections of some were still present, most of the marines defending the valley were more than happy to present Willie Pete to the savages that refused to meet humanity with peaceful intentions.

The two colonels grinned when the shells exploded and released pure white clouds, almost feathery in texture, and as the precious angelical smoke poured into the shields the screaming started and eventually part of the shields dropped.

Palmer Island, line of the elven army.

Katar Qinnelis was a simple riffle man and didn’t have too much ambitions above his station. After all he was just a wood elf with poor magic and barely considered better than the orcs, wolfmen and different races conquered by the high elves in the past millennia.

And that is why he was in this battle, the first of the campaign to conquer another world for the triumvirate. He didn’t hate these beings, these apes, he had never saw them even if the high elves claimed that this wasn’t the first harvest of this world. He only cared for way to secure a better future for his children and the looting of something of value in this conquest was the fastest way to achieve that.

But something was wrong, different to what his superiors had told them while marching to meet these apes. They didn’t leave their trenches to line up and meet them in battle but hided inside them.

That would make it easier for the beasts to slaughter them once they tamers released them, Qinnelis thought. The beasts would use their speed to close in and swarm them in melee and would keep him out of harm’s way. Because even if high elves were above him, he still had the beast to look down.

But there were something that filled him with dread in spite of the reassurance that thinking in the training and strategies taught to him in training brought to him.

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Katar Qinnelis saw, as they started to march that behind the apes’ trenches dust clouds appeared in the distance and a whistling sound became louder and louder until explosions began to ripple in the shield above his head and a mysterious white smoke powder and some weird smoking began to get into the shield.

And whit the smoke coughs and screams began.

Command group, the elven lines.

‘What the hell is happening?!’

‘We don’t know sir’

‘Mages! Mages! Add more power to the shields if needed. Telepaths! Transmit that order to all the battle mages, they can’t allow the shields to fail!!’

From the back of the battle formation he could see of the explosions that stopped the advance of his army and slowed the advance to a crawl.

Strategos Eldaerenth Aera was screaming orders. Everything was wrong. How could their slug throwers have so much reach? His beast drawn had a range of 1 tack and the advanced ones back in home have 5 tacks, but even then they inaccurate yet these apes were reaching his army at double the distance with deadly accuracy. He just hoped that the magicians could keep the effort long enough.

And besides. What the hell was this smoke?

‘Mages, what…?’

‘What wretched curse is this?!’

Aera couldn’t finish his line because a horrendous scream was heard from the mages that were a bit closer to the lines than he was, the magical savants in charge of treating wounds and try to revitalize the recently deceased.

As he walked closer to the mages and their apprentices whom were treating some wounded he could see the reason of the screams.

‘It burned all the way to the bone!’

‘The water can’t quench this thing!’

‘My chest hurts!’

‘For the holy triumvirate!’

Aerea could see the medical savants discussing how to treat the first victims of the white smoke. At first he thought nothing of it, that the apes were only creating the smoke to cover their movements, possibly to launch some ambush after realizing their weapons couldn’t penetrate the shields raised by his magicians but he was wrong.

Now he realized, after seeing the horrendous burns on the elf lying on the floor that the smoke was not a trick, and what was worse, the elf was not only badly burned, he was still burning but not with fire.

White powder was smoking and glued to his flesh and it made the flesh bubble and sizzle like boiling fat, leaving horrendous burns and keep burning and burning. Larger fragments, the size of pebbles burned all the way to the bone and the screams, the unholy screams of the victims of this accursed weapon, a weapon, because his magicians couldn’t detect magic in the damned smoking white substance and so far have failed to remove them without suffering the same misery themselves.

But Aera needed to know how this was happening to his elves.

‘Listen son, I know it hurts but you need to tell me how this happened.’

The elf coughed between screams, but managed to spat what he saw.

‘The explosions, in the shield, they release the smoke, white pebbles and powder, they fell through the shield.’

He had to change his strategy now, the battle has barely lasted 2 minutes and he had already hundreds, possible thousands of causalities, he saw more and more of badly burned elves and other races being dragged by his comrades to the rear, repeating the horror scenes he just had witnessed.

Aera had to use his numerical superiority to his advantage even in this narrow valley, especially now that the battle mages in charge of the shields in the frontal lines could be incapacitated by the smoke at any moment. There wasn’t another option, he had to release the beasts.

He turned to see one telepath of his personal staff and barked some orders.

‘Order the beast handlers to release the beasts.’

‘But sir the enemy is too far, the time it wou…’

‘Send them NOW!’

And with that the telepath hastily transmitted his orders.

‘And were are the freaking dragons of Heixisys?’

As he said that the sound of more explosions was seen and as more of the white substance poured in the shield, completely drowning parts of his army he heard a loud pop as the shield started to drop in some parts, leaving his troops to be consumed by the smoke.

‘Oh no.’

UEI defensive line, Palmer Island.

‘We have some….’ The voice in the radio trailed off ‘hostiles incoming fast.’

The radio was reciting a series of reports from the trenches about the beasts running directly to their defenses but Lieutenant Leonid Lebedev feel safe inside his tank, a new semi-autonomous MK T-1, especially with that shield of theirs disappearing slowly.

Unlike the half a century old rusted buckets that left their crews marooned or that just refused to fire in the Mediterranean pacification campaign decades ago, his tank was new, a model designed just before the fall of civilization in the 2070’s as part of what the blueprints called “fifth generation MBT”, which production began 15 years ago.

A 50 tons marvel with two pilots armed with a 145mm cannon gel cannon, a direct descendant of the bulk loaded liquid propellants researched 2 centuries ago capable of fine tuning the speed for the desired range of different types of shell. But the most impressive equipment of the tank was its complex AI capable of handling most of its functions or even function as an UGV if the pilots became incapacitated or the operational parameters demanded it.

Leonid loved his tank, it has defeated all the legacy tanks it has fought, the monstrosity of the MK 75 Tigerwolf of the Christendoms, but now his tank wasn’t facing old tanks left to rot by the long gone countries of the old world, rust bucket in use by some kingdom attacking the cities of the UEI or the technological aberrations of some deranged mind that tried to prove their superiority over the UEI, they were facing monsters right out of children stories.

And he had bet to win. He and his copilot, Sergeant Anya Abramova, had bet about the blood color of the monsters they were facing and now.

‘Load beehive’

At the voice command the AI quickly reacted. The autoloader quickly selecting the correct shell and the correct amount of gel propellant for the desired range of that specific round, the sound of gel filling the combustion chamber of the cannon always calmed his nerves.

The indicator in his visor screen, indicating that the cannon was ready to fire, now it was only matter of awaiting until the enemy got inside the range of his tank main weapon, but for the moment he and the sergeant could appreciate the work of the artillery on the unshielded troops.

After the artillery successfully neutralized some of the shields with the use of white phosphorous, conventional artillery has been as effective against them as it would have been against tightly packed humans.

He saw some of the largest monsters getting closer, some intact, others like the big trolls, 15 meters tall were running giving demented screams of pain, with parts of their bodies smoking white and terrible gashes in their bodies leaking blue blood.

‘It seems that you own me 5 credits Leonid.’ Said smirking the sergeant.

‘It is too early to celebrate for you Anya, there still are many different monsters.’ Lebedev replied.

‘You wish Lieutenant.’

Levedev smiled, the sergeant might have won the first round but she couldn’t deny that there still were many different monsters left which blood they haven’t seen yet, like those wolfmen right out of the mythology, or the bipedal pigs and even some crabmen, a mix of a centaur and a crab.

‘Targets have reached the maximum engagement range.’

The soothing voice of the AI warned them of the monsters reaching the 5000 meters mark, the maximum effective range of their main weapon. Unfortunately for the sergeant she would need to wait for the monsters to reach the effective range of the 14.5mm machine gun she commanded.

Levedev selected a pack of the wolfmen whom were running on all their 4 limbs like demented hunting dogs. As he saw the sight in his targeting visor center on the wolfmen the AI let them know they on target, now it was just matter of pushing a button and the beehive round would be on its way.

At the predetermined optimal distance programed in the timing fuse of the shell, it exploded and released 4,700 fletches like and giant shotgun.

And while he couldn’t see the round in fly, the effect on the targets was immediate, the wolfmen group he was targeting became a bloody brown mist, farther away the effects were less dramatic with the bodies losing limbs or parts of the body.

‘It seems that you own me another 5 credits.’

‘Shut up and leave me concentrate.’

There were reports of the entire line of the enemy stopping dead in its tracks, something they could see clearly, the enemy stumbling and failing with the bodies of their death comrades in front of them creating a mass of death and living bodies, the perfect target for a HE-frag.

‘Load frag.’

As the weapon was reloading he selected hos next target, one of the large trolls which left side of its abdomen became riddle with holes giving it the appearance of wood riddle with termites.

He saw the round impact, the troll upper chest disappearing and its horrendous head failing from its shoulders crushing a crabman into an orange pulp. As the Lieutenant Lebedev was preparing the next target, a large lizards similar to a triceratops without horns and apparently crewed like ancient war elephants he cheered up a little.

‘Well, it seems that you now own me 5 credits.’

‘Whatever, I’m still wining.’

Leonid smiled at the fake indifferent attitude of the sergeant, she always have been a sore loser whenever they bet on something.

And the lizard exploded in green gore he saw in the sergeant slightly twisting her mouth in the corner of his eye behind his semitransparent targeting visor. Now they were even.

Somewhere in the elven lines.

Katar Qinnelis was lying on the ground, his leg missing, chest burning and one eye blinded by one of the burning white rocks. He didn’t feel how he lost his leg, only that one moment it was there attached to his body and then a strong crack was heard and he fell to the ground.

It wasn’t what his lords have promised, an easy and glorious combat full with riches to plunder, not even the strenuous combat that his fellow soldiers were expecting, with the monsters and lesser races doing most of the fighting and dying, no, he was lying in the ground, surrounded of corpses, unable to move and chocking with the damned white smoke.

And while he had managed to stop the bleeding but Katar Qinnelis didn’t hold hopes of leaving this battlefield and he lamented, he lamented that he would be unable to see his family again, his wife and children, his home in the countryside of the elven empire but above all he lamented the stupidity of their lords to follow the invasion after their dragons were slowly being beaten by the damnable automatons of the natives of this world.

As Katar Qinnelis wallowed in self-pity and hatred to his superiors, he saw a troll near him trying to protect himself from the demonic weapons of their opponents. The iron shield, as thick as Qinnelis’ chest already presented a couple holes just like his chest, testimony of the power of their opponent’s weapons, and that became even more evidently as the shield gained a new hole and with it the head of the troll blossomed in a blue cloud of bone fragments and brain matter.

The headless body of the troll went limp and fell on top of Katar Qinnelis.