Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-Eight: A Dirge After Battle (Patreon)

“They’re not surrendering,” the voice of Captain Daniels, one of the 6th Brigade’s officers, complained. “We have them pinned down and flanked, our rounds are killing them in job lots, and they’re still not surrendering.”

“Noted, Captain,” Pemberley answered, her voice weary. “Eliminate that position and move to the next. Anyone else – any luck taking prisoners?”

“Captain Lewisham here. We secured what looks like a hospital area. Several of the enemy are too wounded to fight. They’re being sent up-tunnel.”

“Good. All units – remember to accept surrenders wherever they are offered. The enemy doesn’t have much left. Pemberley out.”

I opened a channel to Pemberley directly. “Commodore – are our troops using the pre-recorded messages?”

“Yes, we’ve got two men in each forward unit playing your speech in Raptor at maximum volume as they move forward. Still no luck.”

“Maybe I should try a different phrasing…”

“Shapiro and Heath both made their own translations. We’ve used all three versions. Still no luck getting them to surrender.”

“By Heath you mean Edward?”

“Yes. Still no sign of the Major-General. At this point…”

I swallowed. “How’s Edward holding up?”

“He’s focusing on his job and translating as best he can. How are you?”

How was I holding up?

Over the last few hours, I’d been avoiding thinking about Agni. Her loss.

Losing Maria in London had hurt. Badly enough that I’d been less focused. Throwing myself into healing had helped.

Here, I’d thrown myself into battle. Killing the remaining Raptors had taking my mind off her death – for a while.

Rational Mind had blocked the emotions. For as long as I could keep it active, which – at my current level – was a grand total of 710 seconds. After which I’d have to suffer through an hour-long cooldown. Not something I wanted to do, given that we might run up against another mind-controller at any point.

And I needed to learn to deal.

“I may need to talk to someone,” I admitted. “Afterwards.”

“I know someone who helped me. If you’re comfortable.”

“…. Works.”

+1 WISDOM.

And my power agrees with me.

“The 6th is making significant progress; most of the Raptors we’re hitting are underprepared. But it’s bloody work.”

“I can see that. The count of enemies just dropped below 300,000.”

Pemberley was silent for a moment. “Well. That’s a fair bit of progress for four hours.”

“How many prisoners do we have now?”

“Mostly unconscious ones and there’s about two thousand.”

That meant more than four hundred thousand Raptors had been killed since we took out Bahurnivaras.

“Any signs of the Hierarchy moving forward?”

“Their ships are maintaining some distance. Which is a good thing, because if another Battleship breaches the shield, we’re down to throwing tomatoes at them.”

“Make it potatoes and Shamrock might be able to help.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. Let me know if you have a suborbital spud launcher.”

Chuckling, I cut the channel and ambled over to Green.

The Colonel stood behind the heavy weapons emplacement, a tablet in hand. “Belessar,” he greeted me. “The enemy have fortified the hell out of the position facing us – which is essentially the whole of the next chamber. Several hundred Raptors with overlapping fields of fire.”

“You want me to go kill them?”

“At the moment, not needed. They stripped all their internal defenses to fortify this position. As long as we keep shooting at them, they can’t pull back troops – which means our guys in the tunnels have free rein. You’ve seen the latest enemy numbers.”

“I have. It’s dropping by hundreds of Raptors every second.”

“This is the part of a battle we never talk about. Grinding them down to the last defender doesn’t sound heroic, but it gets the job done.”

A lot of adjectives sprang to my mind to describe the clean-up operation in the tunnels. Slow, boring, brutally efficient.

The remnants of the Raptors’ expeditionary force were being exterminated. And with the aliens stubbornly refusing to surrender, there was only one way this could end.

Stubbornly refusing to give ground, the Raptors made us work for each and every cavern, with most encounters only ending with every last alien dead. Bullets, laser beams, and plasma blasts continued to be exchanged, as more and more fell on both sides.

Throughout the evening, I watched the counters on my Quest tracker, hopping from one location to another to Heal or Cure wounded soldiers. Of which the numbers were light.

Probably because the Wild Boars, in their heavy armour, were leading each breach.

It was late evening – close to eight – before the notification I’d been waiting for flashed on my interface.

QUEST COMPLETED: DEFEAT THE ARMY OF THE GUTHNAR.

WHEN THE XERANAI BATTLESHIP CRASHED ON EARTH, THE MAJORITY OF THE ARMY OF THE GUTHNAR HAD SURVIVED AND WAS PREPARED FOR AN EASY MARCH TO VICTORY.

AND THEN THEY RAN INTO YOU.

YOU HAVE LED HUMAN FORCES TO VICTORY AGAINST THE ARMY OF THE GUTHNAR, DEVASTATING THEIR FORCES AND DESTABILIZING THEIR LINE OF SUCCESSION.

SUMMARIZING BATTLE ACHIEVEMENTS:

XERANAI DOCTORATES KILLED: 1

CLANLORDS KILLED: 3

CLAN SCIONS KILLED: 1

RAPTOR CAPTAINS KILLED: 122

RAPTOR LIEUTENANTS KILLED: 2,373

RAPTOR HEAVY SNIPERS KILLED: 242,176

RAPTOR GUARDS KILLED: 1,629,748

ADDITIONAL AUXILIARY TROOPS DEFEATED:

34,332 GRIZZELOIDS

116,233 SARNAK

33,746 VAUTARI

ON TWELVE SEPARATE OCCASIONS DURING THE BATTLE, YOU ENCOUNTERED AN EVENT WHICH COULD HAVE CHANGED THE OUTCOME DRASTICALLY IN FAVOUR OF ONE BELLIGERENT OR THE OTHER.

YOU HAVE SUCCEEDED IN OVERCOMING 11 OF THESE 12 SITUATIONS.

(FAILED – DEFEAT THE WALKING FORTRESS IN DIRECT COMBAT)

FOR LEADING A HUMAN FORCE TO VICTORY IN A MAJOR BATTLE WITH OVER 2 MILLION ENEMIES, YOU RECEIVE +2,000,000 XP.

FOR SUCCESSFULLY NAVIGATING 11 SITUATIONS OF CRISIS DURING THE BATTLE, YOU RECEIVE 1,100,000 XP AND +11 WISDOM.

FOR EACH ENEMY COMBATANT KILLED IN COMBAT WITH HUMAN FORCES (INCLUDING YOURSELF) YOU RECEIVE BONUS XP.

FOR RAPTOR GUARDS, SARNAK TROOPERS, VAUTARI: +1 XP.

FOR GRIZZELOIDS AND HEAVY SNIPERS: +3 XP.

FOR RAPTOR LIEUTENANTS: +9 XP.

FOR RAPTOR CAPTAINS: +27 XP.

FOR LORDS AND GENERALS: +729 XP.

TOTAL BONUS XP GAINED FROM KILLS: +2,636,818.

LEVEL UP! 1 ATTRIBUTE BOOST AVAILABLE.

The notification scrolled across my interface, in all its detailed glory.

Eleven situations where I’d succeeded. One where I’d failed.

If I’d not been beaten by the Walking Fortress, Agni would still be alive now. Laughing at me, probably, for my self-pity. Or subtly mocking me for some imagined stupidity.

I needed to take Pemberley’s offer up.

But first, I needed to head home.

“It’s over,” I informed the command channel. “The last of the Raptors was just eliminated.”

“We’re waiting for confirmation,” the Australian coordinator, Colonel Moseby, replied. “We have patrols combing the countryside for stragglers – might be some hidden in the bushes.”

“I have confidence at this end, Colonel,” Pemberley chimed in. “If Belessar says they’re done, they’re done. At any rate it’s been nearly half an hour since we found a living alien in the tunnels, and our men are at the ragged edge of their endurance. Most have been in their suits for nineteen hours or more.”

Nineteen hours? No wonder I felt weary. Even if the last two hours had been mostly fixing up wounded soldiers and standing by in case a counterattack came.

“Understood, Commodore. You can rotate the Rapid Response Division out – we can take it from here.”