Alternate History The War to End All (Human) Wars

Eparkhos

Well-known member
This was a concept I came up with this morning and quickly wrote out. I'm not sure if I want to turn this into a series, so please let me know what you think.
 
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Eparkhos

Well-known member
The M’kazi attack had taken the Jedzans completely off-guard, leaving them backlit by a nebula as dozens of attack craft swept down upon them within a hailstorm of missiles and depleted uranium. They had returned fire at once, of course, and the light frames of the enemy ships had been worthless against the strength of an entire cultivator fleet, but the M’kazi were everywhere at once and the great warships were overwhelmed. After three weeks of bloody battle, the Jedzan armada had been reduced to melted dross and debris floating in interstellar space, surrounded by hundreds of enemy wrecks. The surviving M’kazi ships dredged through the remnants of the formation, confirming the enemy’s complete destruction, then turned and made for home.


However, one Jedzan ship had escaped, a small transport that had fled during the chaos mostly intact. As the transport coasted through deep space, everything except life support turned off to remain undetected, its aedarang knew that it was royally screwed. It had nominally been the fleet’s third-in-command, expected to stay and fight until the end, and if even a single other ship got back home, it would almost certainly be executed slowly. If the rest of the fleet was destroyed, as was likely, someone would’ve realized it had fled and it would definitely be executed slowly.


Unless….


The fleet’s mission had been to complete the conversion of a contested planet, and the transport carried a few dozen marines, several thousand stethric and a few prefabbed cultivation machines. If it could find some planet full of primitives, conquer part of it and then start cultivating, then maybe high command would be willing to overlook its cowardice. It was a long shot, but it was probably the best option it had.


It ordered its navigator to make for the nearest planetary system. Some time later, it was excited to hear reports of incredibly faint radio waves….
 
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Eparkhos

Well-known member
Note: This part was a bit rushed and might be revised later.

22 May 1916
Left Bank of the Putylivka River, Russian Empire



Vladimir sighed, collapsing onto the dirt ramparts of the artillery dugout. It was a warm spring day with a nice breeze, but it felt blisteringly hot in his woolen uniform and he’d been on his feet since late the night before.


“Pyotr?” he called, voice hoarse and dry.


His friend sat a few paces away in a similar position. He gave Vladimir a bleary look. “Yeah?”


“Do you remember when I said that camp was boring?”


They chuckled. Vladimir glanced at the pile of shells that lay on the cart, still to be unloaded, and groaned. They’d been woken at dawn a few days before and crammed into an over-crowded train, then rushed to the front for what felt like an eternity. He’d thought for sure that he’d finally be able to actually fire one of the big guns they hauled, only to be pointed to a boxcar full of six-inch shells and told to start transferring them to the carts. He’d finally gotten to a firing position, only to have to unload the same damn shells he’d loaded before.


“Get back to work you useless bastards!” PoruchikChekhov shouted, stomping towards them. “Do you think the wagons can wait for you to take a goddamn nap? On your feet!”


He felt like hell, but didn’t argue, shambling towards the closest cart. Chekhov was a short, heavyset man who acted like a noble despite being the son of a printer. As Vladimir and Pyotr heaved shells off the wagon bed he chewed them out, a frequent enough occurrence that he was able to tune it out. The damn things were heavy, and each movement made his arms scream with pain. What else was new? His arms hurt, his feet hurt, his head hurt, and Christ almighty did his back hurt.


The cleared cart turned and went back up the road, and another came to take its place. He limped the few hundred paces to the next gun and got to work there. The rest of the unit was scattered up and down the road in similar groupings, working at unloading shells, loading and positioning guns. They’d shown up that morning to find the guns already present but not set up, and he had no idea why they were like that nor did he really care. He’d given up on ever understanding anything high command decided after they’d fled all the way from the Carpathians to the Pripyat Marshes in two months, and just wished they’d give him a rifle.


About an hour later, one of the gun teams decided to start dry-firing their howitzer and Chekhov raced off to scream at them. Vladimir sat down on one of the carts, trying to relieve his screaming feet, and Pyotr followed.


“I hate that bastard.” Pyotr muttered, glaring at the poruchik’s distant form. “If he wants to act so much like an aristocrat then I’ll hang him like one.”


Vladimir frowned. He despised Chekhov as well, but it wouldn’t do Pyotr any good to openly threaten an officer. “You shouldn’t say such things.”


Pyotr snorted. “What, you think the Okhrana has spies in a goddamn artillery battalion? I’ll say it again, if Chekhov wants to act like a blue-blood I’m going to get an up-close and personal look at said blood.”


They sat in silence for a moment. Vladimir tried to rub his aching feet through the soles of his boots to no avail. His throat was quite dry.


Pyotr spoke first. “I don’t suppose you like the nobles, do you?”


Vladimir shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, there’s nothing I can do about it one way or the other.”


“But you can! You’ve seen how incompetent they are, if common people like us banded together, there’s no way they could stop us.”


“Maybe. But I’d just like to get on with my life. God decides what happens to me, my job is to get along as well as I can with what He decides.”


“That….that’s fair.” Pyotr said in a tone that suggested he didn’t agree. “But you’re sure?”


Vladimir nodded. “Mhm. He decides whether or not I catch a bullet, or even if some rock falls out of the sky and whacks me over the head like it did in Siberia. He’s seen me through this far, I’m not going to start questioning Him now.”


Pyotr started to say something, then cut himself off. “Shit, here comes Chekhov.”


They got back to work unloading shells. After two hours without relief Vladimir’s feet felt like they were on fire, and a furtive glance revealed that even the poruchik was shifting his weight uncomfortably. Good, he hoped that they felt like the Devil himself was nailing his boots to his feet. He was tempted to say something to that effect, then realized no-one had asked for water all day. He did so, and after a brief conversation with a runner Chekhov had pointed him and a few others towards a nearby river. After briefly getting lost he found the river, which was really a glorified stream, and filled his canteen, parasites be damned. In the quiet of the wilds, he could hear a faint buzzing sound, almost like there was a bunch of angry bees about. He looked around, saw nothing, and shrugged.


He’d just gotten back to the battery when someone at the other end started to shout, incoherent at such distance. This was followed by several more men, and within a minute it seemed as if half the unit was yelling. Several of the horses were also acting nervous, eyes and ears flicking about as they shifted in their braces. Chekhov leapt off a near-empty cart with a start.


“Now what?” he growled, storming towards the source of the commotion.


Vladimir and Pyotr exchanged slightly confused looks, then followed. He handed Pyotr his canteen, and the man took several large gulps.


“What is it?” he gasped as he finished.


Vladimir shrugged. “Hell if I know. Maybe the Austrians are up to something, or maybe the Fritzes put up an airship.”


“God, I hope it’s not an airship. My cousin was at Tannenberg and fought the zeppelins there. I hope I never have to see one.”


Vladimir’s response died in his throat. Before them, Chekhov stood staring at the sky, bug-eyed, with dozens of other men in similar positions or muttering words of confusion or disbelief. Coming out from behind a stand of trees, he looked upwards as well, and stopped in his tracks.


An object was hovering in the sky a mile or so away, transfixed several hundred feet above the treetops. The first thing that struck him was its color. It was bright white, like a whitewashed egg, the sort of white that’s painful to look at, but had smaller black channels running across its surface. As his eyes adjusted, he realized how large it truly was. If he had to guess, he would put it at about the size of a wheat field, shaped like a rounded piece of honeycomb. In the center of it was a bright blue disk, several shades lighter than the sky around it.


“What the hell is that?” he asked aloud. Pyotr said something similar, and the men looked at each other with complete bewilderment. Vladimir scanned the crowd, spotting Ivan Ivanovich, who had once been a teacher’s assistant.


“Hey, Ivan!” he shouted, jogging towards him. “What is that?”


Ivan shrugged. “I don’t have a clue.”


The strange object began to twist, almost like a top spinning in place. Maybe it was trying to find its course? He didn’t know, he wasn’t a pilot.


At long last, Chekhov broke from his trance. “What-- that-- Mother of God!” He stammered for a minute, choking on every syllable, before he finally spoke clearly. “It has to be the Fritzes or the Bozgors, what with their zeppelins. Shit, they’re probably calling in our position to the artillery right now.”


The officer jumped up on the nearest cart, pointing to men seemingly at random. “You, all of you, start loading. You, find that damn thing’s mark and set as many guns for it as you can, and the rest of you get to your guns. You, run up to the nearest command tent and tell them everything. Move!”


Men began to swarm around them, running this way and that like a nest of disturbed ants. Their gun having been lost in transit, Vladimir and Pyotr scrambled to the nearest cannon and started manhandling shells. His arms felt as if he hadn’t done anything in a day, the shock and adrenaline from facing this new weapon wiping out their exhaustion. He’d seen similar guns in action before, and as he glanced at the strange airship drifting towards them he almost felt sorry for the Fritzes aboard. Almost.


“FIRE!”


He slammed his hands over his ears as soon as he heard, barely blocking out the eardrum-rupturing roar of six inch field guns firing en masse. Instinctively, he turned and watched the shells fly, dimly aware of everyone else around him doing the same. Most of them flew wide or low, courtesy of faulty sights or bad crew, eliciting groans from the artillerymen and shouts from Chekhov. Two, however, went straight for the airship, hurtling towards it with the finality of a speed train. He squinted, anticipating a gas explosion.


Instead, bolts of bright-blue fire--no, not fire, burning light--shot out of the object’s center, hitting the shells dead-on a few dozen feet out. With faint popping sounds they exploded, falling to the ground as clouds of dust.


The battery lay in stunned silence for a long minute. Pyotr was the first to speak. “What?”


At once, they exploded into shouts and yells, men frantically gesturing between the object, the guns, occasionally one another or at Chekhov, who was trying to regain control of the cacophonous mess. Vladimir, however, stood transfixed. The humming sound from earlier was back, louder than ever, and as it grew in intensity the object approached. Their shells hadn’t hurt the airship, or whatever the hell it was, they had just pissed it off. Parts of the craft began to break off, and he realized that the black marks were seams, like some sort of bizarre child’s toy. The smaller parts spun briefly, then righted themselves and bore towards them at a much faster speed. This was bad. Really, really bad. The pit in his stomach was slowly sinking into an abyss.


Not for the first time in his life, Vladimir turned and ran, pushing aside the jumble of men who surrounded him. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw others doing the same, and Chekhov roared something and fired his revolver into the air to no avail. The humming sound was everywhere now, and he could barely hear the shouts and cries of the men around him. He bolted past a man and into a gap in the crowd, arms pumping like cylinders as he got into the open for the first time. He needed to get out of here, now, before the airship landed or came back around for another pass.


An explosion erupted behind him, and he glanced behind him to see the smaller airships hovering above the grass a few hundred meters away, clouds of murky gas spilling out from their sides as a gun rapidly turned into a smouldering heap. He looked forward and nearly slammed into a tree, dodging out of the way and resuming his full-tilt sprint. A few paces later, a chorus of screams and shouts erupted, and Chekhov and whichever men had rifles began to fire. He looked over his shoulder again to see twisted purple forms charging across the plain towards the crowd of fleeing men. He prayed, shouting out barely-remembered hymns as he poured all of his energy into running. Bolts of light, like the ones that had destroyed the shells shot over his head and he dropped into a crouching sprint, he was sure now that if he stopped he was dead or worse but his legs were beginning to tire as strain from the day began to show.


Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a cart, its wheel shattered in a pothole, and he spun about at once. Snatching up a nearby shovel he leapt onto its flat back, focusing on the braying donkey that was thrashing against its restraints. As another bolt shot overhead he jumped onto its back, grabbing its mane with one hand and slamming the shovel blade into the ties with the other. It gave way and the other snapped and the donkey shot out of the bars, nearly throwing him off as it raced down the road at full gallop. He was a good rider and managed to lock his legs against its side, clinging to its mane and bridle as it hurtled away….


He turned and saw a scene from hell. The smouldering remnants of the guns lay in an arc around their former liner, some having been tossed out of place as if by giants. The unit had been turned into a seething mass of men and bodies as they struggled to escape the--God, what were those? He couldn’t see well, but strange, purple beasts rampaged among them with crackling blue light and the occasional explosion. Men were frantically manning one of the farther guns and trying to point it at the demons, but they were too close and about to be overrun. Stomach roiling, he looked away.


He was gaining distance now, but he still needed to get away. He kicked the donkey, turning it slightly to the left and plunging into the brush. God willing he knew where he was going. A few minutes later he emerged into the river valley, galloping across the sluggish current and onto the other side. He rode for three more hours, kicking the donkey into an outright charge before he felt safe enough to stop.


What the hell had happened?
 
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Eparkhos

Well-known member
22 May 1916
East of Lutsk, Occupied Russia



“I fold.” Moravec said, disgust clear on his face as he tossed the cards onto the table.


“Great,” Karpaty said, sweeping the pile of pebbles to his side of the table. “That puts us at what, twelve to one?”


“Damn you.” Moravec said. He hadn’t a clue how he kept losing. Normally he would’ve accused Karpaty of using rigged cards, but it was his own damn pack.


“Shall we go again?” Karpaty asked, a shit-eating grin on his face.


“I shouldn’t.” he sighed. He hated to lose, but there was nothing else to do out here, and they’d switched to worthless pebbles after he lost five hands in a row. What was the harm?


“You really shouldn’t. Perhaps your string of defeats is an angel trying to help you?”


He groaned. The rest of the company had been transferred somewhere up the line a few days before, leaving just three of them to hold down the position until reinforcements could be brought up. Jan Pleshko had proven to be a dour, humorless man who never stopped lecturing them about morality. Currently, he was peering out of the glorified rut that they called a trench for the Russian horde that he insisted was about to counter-attack at any moment.


“You know, Pleshko,” Karpaty said, dealing out the cards. “You missed your calling. You should’ve been a chaplain.”


“God had other intentions for me. You, however, may well be a tool of the devil.”


Karpaty started to retort but Moravec cut him off, not wanting a shouting match to break out like it had last time. “That’s nice and all, but I think I see dust on the horizon.”


Pleshko whirled back to the edge of the trench, and Karpaty and Moravec went back to their game. Unsurprisingly, he lost the hand.


“So,” Moravec said as pushed more pebbles to Karpaty’s side of the table, “What do you think is taking the relief so long? Hell if I know.”


“It’s that retarded duke in divisional command. The bastard probably got drunk and wandered off or some shit and now they’ve put everything on hold to find him.”


“You shouldn’t blaggard your superiors.” Pleshko said. He glanced at them, voice softening slightly. “But for once, you’re probably right. If the archduke remains in command of the army, we’ll be spending another winter in the Carpathians.”


“Oh, for God’s sake!” Karpaty snapped, turning slightly to face him. “The Russians are whipped after last year and they’re not coming back. Quit it with all your doom-and-gloom horseshit and relax for five goddamn seconds.”


Pleshko whirled around, beared mouth about to unleash a torrent of words, but then there was a distant sound, halfway between a roar and a pop. He paused, glancing back to the edge of the trench.


“The argies opening up?” Moravec said, also puzzled. “We aren’t supposed to be shooting at anyone, are we?” He grabbed his rifle, reflexively working the bolt as he crouched beside the embankment. If an assault came through while they were here by themselves, they were utterly screwed. He wondered if they could make it to the nearest company under fire. Probably not.


“No, that didn’t sound like the big guns, at least not the normal ones.” Karpaty said, shoving the cards in his pocket and grabbing his gun. “Might be a railway gun, but I’ve never heard one like it. Are there even rails around here?”


“I don’t think so.” Pleshko said, his frown audible as he scanned the horizon. Moravec did likewise. They were on the edge of the eastern forest belt, and as he anxiously peered at the distant copses he wondered if there was a horde of angry Russians assembling on the other side. He crossed himself.


Then a thought occurred to him. “You know, I think I’ve heard that before. It sort of sounded like a whip being cracked, but ten thousand times louder.”


“Don’t be stupid.” Karpaty snapped. “What, are angels trying to spank the Russians or some shit?”


He ignored it, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet like he was about to charge another trench. Something was about to happen, he just knew it. He realized he was instinctively working the bolt and forced himself to stop, not wanting to waste bullets.


A blur of movement caught his eye and he looked back to the sky. For a second he stood in stunned silence, unable to believe what he was seeing. Then he recovered part of his senses and grabbed Pleshko by the shoulder, pointing. Karpaty gasped behind him.


A rounded hexagon hovered high in the sky. It was larger than any zeppelin he’d ever seen, and even at such a great distance it was larger than any building back in Bohemia, its length about twice the size of the Cracow courtyard, the largest thing he’d ever seen in person and its width twice even that. It was blindingly white, glinting as bright as the harvest moon, but in some places black lines cracked its surface. It was hard to see at this distance, but it seemed as if only two of its sides weren’t covered by the black stuff. A strange, bright-blue light glowed in its center.


“What the hell is that?” he murmured. He glanced behind him to see his companions staring transfixed, Karpaty’s bearded jaw hanging open. He looked back and the shape had begun to turn slightly with no other sign of movement, reminding him in some eerie way of a compass spinning.


“My God.” Pleshko said. Karpaty said likewise in a cruder fashion. Moravec could now hear a slight buzzing sound coming from the object, like an overloaded telegraph cable. There were wireless telegraphs in the command center, or so he was told. Maybe it was trying to reach those?


“It might be a zeppelin.” he said. The other men began to nod, then Pleshko stopped.


“Wait, if that’s a zeppelin, where are its fins?” he asked. “If it doesn’t have fins, it’ll start rolling about, but it’s staying stock-still.”


“Maybe it’s some new sort of zeppelin?” Moravec guessed. “It might be letting out gas to stay even like that.”


“Yeah, it’s a zeppelin, but the pilot’s fucking retarded!” Karpaty said, finally recovering his senses. “Hanging right there, he’s just asking to get shot. With my luck it’ll burn and come down right on us.”


As if on cue, there was the distant boom of heavy guns from the distant Russian lines. A pair of shells shot towards the mysterious object, and for a second he felt a twinge of anger at the thought of this new wonder weapon being lost so quickly. But then a bolt of flaming light flashed out of the object, striking one of the shells and causing it to explode in a shower of fire and dust, and within seconds a dozen more had done the same to the rest.


“Jesus Christ.” he breathed. With this on their side, there was no way they could lose now. A cheer went up from further up the line.


The sides of zeppelin seemed to break off in shards, and he quickly recognized that the black lines were in fact fissures. An airship with a half-dozen other airships embedded within it? Hell, it had just destroyed those shells, he had no right to complain. Five of the smaller objects turned, as if orienting themselves, and streaked towards the Russians. Moravec and Karpaty exchanged grins. The bastards were about to get a personal visit from the mini-zeppelins, and were about to find out how well those fire-light weapons fared up close. Hell, if they were lucky, it might be the final breakthrough….


“Stop smiling, you jackasses!” Pleshko snapped. They looked to him, and he gestured towards the sixth small zeppelin, which was making almost directly for them. Moravec’s stomach dropped.


“Maybe they’re bringing a message, or a new commander?” he asked, praying that the zeppelin was in fact friendly.


“Let’s hope so.”


The smaller zeppelin raced towards them, then banked to the left so it was facing the company to their north. The cheers had stopped, and Moravec started to fidget with the clips in his pocket. As it neared, the craft slowed, the sound of humming wires growing louder until it seemed to drown out the world. Was it going to crash? It wouldn’t have much time to recover if it was going to land, and it had the wrong angle if it was going to lower someone down by ladder. He had no idea how zeppelins normally landed, he’d only ever seen one in a newsreel. When it seemed as if the zeppelin was about to crash into the trees it stopped abruptly, then began to glide forward onto open ground, where it came to another stop. One of its sides split open--the zeppelin’s side just split open, what in God’s name was that--and a cloud of gas spilled out. It remained floating.


“I don’t think that’s a zeppelin.” he whispered, anxiety deepening into outright dread.


“Then what the hell is it?” Karpaty snapped.


“I don’t know!”


“Quiet!” Pleshko said.


The cloud of gas dissipated, revealing six strange figures. They were probably about five feet tall, wearing clothes of dark purple and standing extremely hunched over, like some kind of novelty act, with one leg out. Two of them held long, rectangular boxes against their backs. What the hell?


“Jesus Christ.” Pleshko said. “Those aren’t people.”


“No, no, they’ve got to be….” Moravec began, trailing off as he realized Pleshko was right. Whatever was coming out of the zeppelin, they weren’t human. It was absurd, but they almost looked like pictures he’d seen in books about dinosaurs, except for a few squarish bumps here and there and their monotone color. As the cloud further dissipated, he saw that their eyes glowed with the same blue light of the zeppelin, as did networks of lines that stretched across their entire body. Their heads were long and narrow, and a crown of horns rose at the back of their necks.


“Demons.” he whispered. Beside him, Pleshko started to pray.


The creatures stood stock-still for an eternal second, and then a chorus of machine guns roared to life. Thank God, he thought, nothing could survive their hail of lead at anything but a mile.


But they turned slowly, as if tracking the source of a sound. Bullets flew all around them, striking the dirt and the zepp--whatever the hell it was--with dull thuds but impossibly missing them all. A higher pitch began to rattle in his ears as they turned and charged towards the guns, screeching and cackling like, like demons. They loped unnaturally, halfway between beast and man and standing tall as if they were out for a stroll but running faster than any man ever could. They were a hundred yards out. As they closed with the trenches the clacking sound and the bark of rifle fire grew into a hellish crescendo, and he realized that they were getting hit, but the bullets were bouncing off. Jesus fucking Christ, they were being hit but the bullets couldn’t fucking hurt them. The whining hiss suddenly grew until it made his ears bleed, and arcs of flaming blue light leapt out from their horns and into the trenches with a cacophony of screams. At fifty yards they did it again, the wails of the dead and dying barely audible over the hellish array of noise. Instinctively he raised his rifle, leveling it at the leading beast and firing, the kick against his shoulder comforting as he frantically worked the bolt. After the second shot they were thirty yards, and at the third twenty. One of the ones carrying a box turned mid-stride to face a gun nest and a bright orange thing shot out of it leaving a tail of grey smoke as it slammed into the trench wall and exploded in a blinding flash. Men began to scramble out of the other trench wall in their desperation to escape, only to be cut down by blue light or by the blasts that followed the first. They hit the trench lip and plunged into, disappearing with a chorus of screams.


“Jesusfuckingchristweneedtogetoutofhererightfuckingnow.” Karpaty said, voice sheer terror.


Pleshko turned and hurtled down the trench at a full-out sprint, snatching up his rifle as he went with Karpaty a few steps behind him. Moravec stood in stunned, horrified silence. Then the wave of fear smashed over him and he grabbed his canteen before flying after them.


Hell itself was breaking loose….
 

ATP

Well-known member
Good,i like it.But our covardly friend have problem - one ship with less then 100 marines could destroy all Earth states,but not control them.
He need vassal human states which did it for him.Is he smart enough to undarstandt that?

P.S he could use all minorities in both Germany and Russia,becouse both states presecuted them.
In case of Germany,Bavaria and Saxony if their kings are smart enough to kneel.
 

Eparkhos

Well-known member
Good,i like it.But our covardly friend have problem - one ship with less then 100 marines could destroy all Earth states,but not control them.
He need vassal human states which did it for him.Is he smart enough to undarstandt that?

P.S he could use all minorities in both Germany and Russia,becouse both states presecuted them.
In case of Germany,Bavaria and Saxony if their kings are smart enough to kneel.
The aedarang does know enough to play divide-and-conquer and it will be a major point later on. Thanks for commenting, btw.
 
P4

Eparkhos

Well-known member
22 May 1916
Verdun


The sound of artillery fire had boomed through the air for days now. It was nothing new, but as he crouched in the freshly-dug trench, Andre Pelletier could tell that this time was distant. During occasional breaks in the hailstorm of lead the faint rumble of shells striking concrete could be heard, and he suspected that another assault was soon to begin.

He shifted slightly, rising on his haunches and peering over the rim of the dugout he’d helped hastily dig out a few days before. He’d lived in Verdun before the war, and the familiar landscape of thick woods and fertile fields had long-since given way to a God-forsaken moonscape of shell-craters and burnt-out trees starkly contrasted with the bright green fields. A kilometer or so of sloping, pock-marked hillside away, Fort Douaumont loomed like Satan’s own castle, its scarred and battered gunports giving the impression of a giant mouth. Hundreds of corpses lay strewn along the hillside, many of them his former friends. He’d survived three charges up that damned hill, and he doubted he’d live through a fourth. Despite having not eaten today, there was a cold, hard lump in his stomach. He scratched his beard and tried to ignore it.

He slipped back into his crouch and looked down the trench. Men were packed together like sardines, and judging by their unstained coats many of them were either recruits or reservists. He didn’t know, nor did he want to know. Nearly two years of painful experience had taught him not to get attached if he could help it, and he had no inclination to do so before an assault that was almost certainly suicide. Thankfully, the sound of the big guns drowned out anything less than shouting, and he could say the usual batch of prayers in relative peace.

At 11:28, the German batteries roared to life for the first time that day. Shells fell all around the trench, throwing up massive clouds of dirt and shaking the ground itself. The usual wave of fear crashed over him, chilling him to the bone, and he began to bounce on his feet, filled with nervous energy. The recruits seemed absolutely petrified, quaking in a way that made him doubt if they’d been born in the 19th century. Zero hour, twelve noon, was rapidly approaching, and he began to work the bolt on his M93 back and forth with shaking hands, praying that the damn thing didn’t jam once he went over the top.

One of the recruits, a tall man, more of a boy, really, with curly brown hair and wide eyes grabbed his shoulder.

“Hey, you’ve been over the top before, right? Any advice.”

He pretended to think for a moment. “Don’t get shot.”

A second later, whistles began to echo over the trench. Ten minutes early, damn. He swore, shoving a magazine into his rifle as machine guns in the fort opened up with their hideous cracking rattle. He vaulted up the side of the trench with practiced skill, emerging in a low crouch with rifle in hand.

Bullets whizzed by, mere inches from his head, and fear and exhilaration gripped his heart. Hundreds of men advanced before him, a great dark-blue tide swiftly moving up the hill, and as men began to fall in heaps he thanked God he was in the middle ranks this time. He threw himself forward, raising his rifle and firing at one of the gaps in the fort. A puff of grey dust flew up from just beside it and he swore, slamming another bullet into the chamber and pressing it against his shoulder. It didn’t fire, and with a bolt of anger he realized his rifle had jammed. He started to clear it, swearing furiously. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a streak of white light, moving faster than a falling shell.

Then the fort exploded.
 
P5

Eparkhos

Well-known member
25 May 1916
Guangxi Province, China


“We’ve been marching in circles for the last day!”

Captain Wen Shi grimaced, resisting the urge to shoot his subordinate for the umpteenth time that day. Instead, he stopped and slowly wheeled about to glare at Lieutenant Guan.

“No, we’ve been going east.” he pointed towards the setting sun, which lay in the opposite direction of the trail they had beaten through the brush. “Just because you’re too stupid to know the sun rises in the east doesn’t mean we’re lost.”

Guan muttered something under his breath, but Wen ignored him and resumed marching. After a second’s hesitation, the junior officer followed, as did the two other surviving members of the company. It was miserably hot out, not helped by his force’s woolen uniforms, but the heat was a fact of life in the southern part of the Empire. Besides, it helped keep the mosquitos and god-knew what else lurked in the jungle off of them.

They reached a stand of bamboo, and he ordered a stop to let the men rest and drink. The thought of having to hack through a wall of reeds for the second time that day was a terrible one, but as he hefted a requisitioned machete in his hand he knew it was the best way forward. They’d been in the jungle for nearly two months now, ever since the ungrateful bastards in Liuzhou had revolted against the rightful emperor and the rest of his company had been killed or defected, but their journey was nearly over. By his estimate, they were less than a week from safety in Lingling, where the garrison still knew what ‘duty’ meant.

By the time darkness had settled across the forest, they’d advanced less than half a mile. Private Zhou built up a small fire, and they cooked and ate a rodent of some kind Guan had shot that morning. There was less than a mouthful for each man.

“Oh, what’s the point of this?” Guan asked, staring off into the darkness with a distant look in his eye. “We’re never gonna escape this damned forest.”

Zhou nodded in commiserance. Private Yuen gave them both a withering glare.

“We’re soldiers of the Emperor. We’ll keep marching until we find another loyal unit, or we’ll die.” A note of hysteria came into his voice. “You knew this when you signed up. We live and die at the Emperor’s command, and if either of you try to desert I’ll shoot you myself.”

“That’s great. If the Emperor had kept us fed and hadn’t abandoned us to die in the jungle then I might’ve considered staying loyal.” Guan said. “As things are now, I think we should turn bandit.”

“Turn bandit?” Yuen snapped. “We are honor-bound to defend the people of China! We take what we need to survive, but outright banditry is unacceptable!”

Great, just what he needed. The last time this had happened Yuen and Guan had nearly shot each other.

“Listen.” Wen said. “We’ve been through a lot and come a long way, it would be foolish to give up now. I’m certain we’re less than a week from Lingling. We’ll keep together until we reach the city, after that you’ll be free to do whatever you care to do.”

“You’ve been saying that for weeks.” Guan said.

“Nothing is too much to endure for the Emperor.” Yuen said. By the spirits, was the kid a Jap?

This was getting on his nerves, and they needed to stay united if they were to have any hope of surviving and reaching civilization. He pointed to the peak of a nearby hill. “Look, we’ll climb that hill tomorrow. If we can see an Imperial army or city we’ll head towards that. If not, we’ll look for the nearest village. Does that satisfy you?”

“No.” they said in unison.

“Good. I’ll take the first watch.”

They broke camp the following morning without anything close to breakfast and started off towards the hill. The foliage was incredibly dense, and they took turns hacking away at it to clear a path up the mountain. He was getting quite hungry, and as Guan was far and away the best shot of the group. The possibility of the lieutenant shooting one or all of them had occurred to him, but after a brief internal debate hunger won out and he asked them to procure something for them. The lieutenant vanished into the jungle while the rest kept beating their way forward. Sometime around noon--he’d lost his watch a week before--Wen decided slight scrapes and splinters were better than this infernal heat and they doffed their coats. By the time they reached the peak, it was mid-afternoon and they were tired, hungry, desperately thirsty and covered in scratches and wounds.

“Damnit,” Wen groaned, flopping against a tree. “Either of you have water?”

“No.” “No.”

He swore. “Great. And I bet Guan’s run off somewhere, or fallen off a cliff or some shit.”

“I see you’re sure of me.” Guan said dryly, emerging out of the forest.

Wen nearly jumped out of his skin, having completely missed his approach. With him, Guan carried a pair of rodents and a starling, and most importantly a full canteen. A fire was quickly built and the starling eaten, split between all of four of them to provide a poor meal while the canteen was passed around. Wen made a mental note to recommend Guan for some sort of medal when they reached Lingling.

“Damn, there are a lot of mosquitos up here.” Zhou muttered, slapping himself on the arm.

They paused. Sure enough, a faint buzzing sound could be heard, slightly lower pitched than most insects but unmistakably similar.

“Really? We’re miles from the nearest swamp.” Guan said. “I didn’t see any ponds other than the one I got the water from, either. There must be one around here somewhere.”

“Shit!” Wen muttered, realizing he’d forgotten their purpose. He scrambled to his feet. “Alright, we’re here to look for cities or armies. Lieutenant, Private Yuen, you have the best eyes, so you get up a tree and start looking. Zhou, you keep the fire burning. I’m going to go up that rise.” he said, pointing to a slight mound on the edge of the hill.

The mosquitos were getting louder, and he pulled his coat back on as he walked. It was a clear day, thank the heavens, and from his vantage he could see for miles. They were on the edge of a great mass of hills and mountains, and to the east the hills shrank down until they became a broad plain. With a jolt, he realized what this meant. From the path they’d followed, the plain could be only that of the Xiao or Xiangjiang Rivers, either of which could be followed into Loyalist territory. They were almost home!

He turned and ran back to the others, only to hear Guan shouting in a manic tone. “Captain! Captain! Get up here!”

What was it? He’d never heard Guan in such a condition. As soon as he got to the fire he had found the tree and was scrambling up it. He found Guan and Yuen both on one of the side-spanning limbs, staring dumbfounded at something in the distance. Muttering commands to give him room, he shuffled forward and peered out in the same general direction as they.

Along a distant road, tailed by a flaring trail of dust, a column of men was marching. For a brief second his heart leapt as he thought he recognized fellow loyalists, then sunk again as he realized they were marching northwards, and were broken into companies en file. It was a republican army, probably straight from Kunming itself. He slammed his fist into the branch.

“Dammit! This is just what we need!”

“So,” Guan said, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of mosquitos, “What do we do now? If we can reach that column, we can probably convince them that we were republicans turned out of a loyalist unit.”

Yuen snorted. “They’d probably just shoot us. I’d rather turn bandit, anyhow.” Then his eyes snapped to something in the distance, and he pointed. “Look!”

A strange white mass, shaped like a cloud but much more solid and centered, was rising from a nearby hilltop. They stared at it in stunned silence. Was it a cloud? He couldn’t say. What else could it be? He knew there were flying machines, but had never seen one and this strange thing didn’t look like anything he’d heard described. Maybe it was some sort of fantastic craft, or maybe a demon or monster. The thing stopped rising suddenly and with surprising speed shot away, towards the column of men. It was moving too fast to be identified as anything other than a stark white blur against an otherwise empty sky.

“Is that a balloon?” Guan asked in a hushed voice.

“Don’t know.” Wen said. “It almost looks like spirits possessed a cloud or something like that.”

The sound of mosquitos began to recede as the craft gained distance, apparently intent on bearing down on the column itself. Yuen and Guan were whispering to each other, but Wen ignored them, sliding further out and straining his eyes to get a better look. He could make out some small black shapes on the side of the thing, but couldn’t tell what they were. It came to a sudden halt directly over the column, and for several minutes it hung there.

“What’s going on?” Zhou shouted.

“Quiet!” they all snapped.

At once, a bright light appeared at the bottom of the object. Wen barely had time to process this before streaks of light shot out of it, smashing into the column and sending miniscule figures flying left and right. A strange, faint sound rolled in from the distance, followed by the popping sound of muted gunfire. They were shooting at it, and even though it could only be a few dozen feet above them the bullets seemed to have no effect. After several more flashes of light, smaller objects began to fall off the side, plunging to the ground. The column was in complete disarray now, faint figures running off into the jungle as the shots reached a crescendo. It was too far to really see what was happening, but the whole damn army must have been massacred.

“It must be Imperial.” Yuen whispered. “Why else would it attack a republican column? I think we’ve found our way home.”

“No,” Wen said, “If we had that sort of magic or technology or whatever it is, we wouldn’t have been run out of Liuzhou. It could be some piece of Western technology, or it could be some spirit thing. We shouldn’t mess around with it.”

“I agree.” Guan said. “We have no idea who or what is in control of that. Maybe it’s a demon angry at the soldiers for disturbing its home.”

“But we also don’t know--”

“Look!” Wen snapped. The smaller objects were flying back up to the main object. After a minute or so it started to drift back towards them at a much slower pace.

“We should leave. We can find out more about it later.” Guan hissed.

He turned and slid back down the tree. Wen started to do the same, and after he fixed Yuen with a hard stare the private did as well. There was no way he was going to risk having an encounter with whatever could do that to an entire column with just four men, especially not with only a pistol and two rifles between them.

As they picked their way back down the mountain, Yuen and Guan hastily filling in Zhou on everything he’d missed, the sound of mosquitos began to grow louder. Wen’s heart beat faster, if that thing was hostile and caught up with them, they’d be royally screwed. As the sound became overwhelming, he gestured towards the bamboo and dove off the trail, his men following close behind him at a full-tilt run. They didn’t stop until the sound had disappeared entirely.
 
P6

Eparkhos

Well-known member
The aedarang was happy. No, that wasn’t entirely right, positive emotions were almost completely alien to its species. It was more like it had returned to a state of calm and anticipation that it hadn’t felt since before the M’kazi ambush. Nonetheless, it was quite satisfied.

As its scouts reported, Kl’qaon’qahung III was a world ripe for conquest. The system was completely uncharted--well, apart from an Ullian lifeboat found drifting in orbit of a neighboring planet, but judging by its design it had been a few millennia--and the natives of the planet were uncontacted and had yet to even pierce the exosphere. The planet wasn’t perfect, but then again which new conquest had ever been? There was too much water and too little land, and what little there was of the latter was split between three disconnected continents, but the atmosphere was almost identical to that of Old Jedza and its magnetosphere was manageable.

It turned its attention to the natives themselves. They had no common name, indicative of their primitive state, but the most commonly used was ‘Homosapiens’, which apparently meant something similar to ‘intelligent beings’, which it found quite ironic. The Homosapiens were on average a few inches above the common Jedzan morphs, but an aedarang such as itself would tower over them. Good bone density, average muscle mass, and a large cranial cavity. They were promising candidates for cultivation, and N’iba’ willing they wouldn’t put up too much of a fight.

Technologically speaking, the Homosapiens were almost pathetically inept. The radio waves it had picked up must have been from experiments, for all the radio waves the scouts had found came from primitive local broadcasters. They appeared to have begun to employ the internal combustion engine rather recently, and in many areas the steam engine was the most advanced motor available. They had limited electronic communication, sound and light but not images, which would certainly make the conquest harder by limiting the usefulness of airburst bombs. Their aeronautics was pathetic, heavier-than-air flight consisting of wood-and-cloth crafts that could be blown apart by a harsh wind, and lighter-than-air flight amounting to strapping yourself to a bag of flammable gas and praying. Nothing the natives had posed a serious threat to the Jedzans in open battle.

Kl’qaon’qahung III was very politically top-heavy. More than half of the planet’s total land mass was ruled by less than ten powers, nine of whose capitals lay on the same peninsula of the primary continent, all less than a thousand t’kulun apart. If these capitals could be quickly secured or destroyed, most of the Homosapiens would be left without leadership and thrown into anarchy. Four-tenths of all Homosapiens lived in two belts in the eastern half of the primary continent, and better still one of those belts was in effective anarchy. The major empires were also at each other’s throats over some imagined slight, and if it acted correctly then they might continue to fight each other and ignore the newcomers. No, they had the best armies on Kl’qaon’qahung III and the potential to organize against the Jedzans, they needed to be dealt with before they had a chance to react.

A plan was forming in the aedarang’s mind. Crush the Homosapiens on the western peninsula, then set up facilities in the population belts and get to cultivating. That would get them started, and once they had momentum going they would be unstoppable.

Of course, they still needed to perform some more reconnaissance. Apparently, the dominant group of Homosapiens considered the world to be divided between five morphs, or races as they called them. For the sake of efficiency, it’d need to get one or two of each as mouthpieces before cultivation began on a grand scale, as well as immersive records of all of the major languages to make Jedzan-Homosapien communication possible. Any subject nations willing to revolt against a major power should also be identified as potential allies. It began to draft a list of requirements, noting that the delay to complete the scouting would allow the stethric and marines to prepare for landfall….
 

ATP

Well-known member
Western peninsula? he mean Europe,right?
If so,he choosen correctly.Now,all he need is identify persecuted minorities and use them.
P.S Ullian lifeboat near Mars or Venus ? becouse if it is Mars,then some of them could survived there.
 

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