War World: Cyborg Revolt by John F. Carr & Don Hawthorne

Author:John F. Carr & Don Hawthorne [Carr, John F. & Hawthorne, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780937912515
Publisher: Pequod Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

I

First Citizen Diettinger sat in his chair in the Citadel Command Post with Deathmaster Quilland and Lady Althene at his side. The attack on Firebase Five had been unexpected and devastating. Once again, they had underestimated Brigadier Cummings and the Haven Volunteers. But it was the unexpected attack on Fort Kursk and its subsequent fall that had forced his hand. He had believed Kursk to be one of the Shangri-La Valley’s most strategic military assets and had hated to destroy it with a high-yield thermonuclear bomb.

Had the Haven Volunteers been able to hold onto the fort it might well have become a rallying point for Haven resistance; something he could not, would not, allow.

The big picture was that Diettinger was trying to do too much with too little. A typical Sauron planetary invasion would involve an entire fleet with two to six full divisions of Soldiers, depending on anticipated resistance, population and industrial capabilities. He had not done the Haven invasion on the cheap; he was doing it on a shoestring, with one ship and a single regiment.

Standard Sauron invasion plans required establishing a firebase at every medium-sized town and city. Each firebase would be garrisoned with at least two full companies of Soldiers with their own heavy weapons unit and air transport. On Haven, he had only six firebases for the entire Shangri-La Valley, which contained roughly eighty percent of Haven’s population and almost all of its manufacturing and industrial capacity.

Each of the six Haven firebases had a minimum of two platoons and only the most distant, Firebases Three and Six, had any air transport. As it was, after the Cossack debacle, they were critically short of helicopters and the three passenger planes they had confiscated were stationed at Firebase One, near the Citadel.

Firebase Five, situated between Fort Kursk and Castell City, was one of the most important firebases and was garrisoned with three platoons, one a heavy weapons platoon, and several fighters. The attack there had coincided with the takeover of Fort Kursk. He had been forced by events to destroy Kursk with a thermonuclear bomb, rather than leave it in Cummings’ hands. The fort was too riddled with secret tunnels and passages to guarantee its safety. Furthermore, the number of casualties required to retake Fort Kursk and hold it were unacceptable.

Diettinger had sent a reserve company of Soldiers from the Citadel to reinforce Firebase Five and to help fix the reported damage. The losses there had been high, but not critically so. “What do you think?” he asked the Deathmaster.

“I think you did the right thing, First Citizen,” Quilland responded. “Without more military assets, we were never going to hold Kursk. The militiamen had been hiding in old tunnels built at the end of the CoDominium era that were not included on any plans we were able to obtain. It appears that entire hill was crisscrossed with passages and secret storage caches. Its loss is unfortunate, but not critical since Castell City is still recovering from our initial strikes.

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