Ekological Chimera
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Chapter 31 - Prisoner
🕑 Added 2024-10-01 17:28:36 +0000 UTCAshwood sat on a chair in the strategy room of the Kirslev family’s palace, pretending to read a map in his armour while some local ‘general’ rambled on about the virtues of envelopments. In reality, he was going through spreadsheets through his implants while doing his best to suppress a grimace.
The plan to ally with the locals had been sound. Still was sound.
‘But goddamnit, why are they so incompetent?’
The plan they had eventually agreed to had been quite simple. Drive out the Custodian’s forces out of the south, then secure the mountain passes, and when their corner of the continent was secure, plan a proper offensive into the heartlands.
It should have been a simple matter, especially since by all accounts the Custodian did not plan to contest them while massing forces on the other side of the Teilen mountains. Hell, apparently a decent portion of the remaining Church forces had even been evacuated.
Unfortunately for Ashwood, all together, the local nobility shared about two to three brain cells. It had quickly become glaringly obvious that war was something quite foreign to the natives. The cities and forts controlled by the Church had been only left with token forces, yet their new allies suffered quite honestly embarrassing casualties when the Republic didn’t do the job for them.
This would have been annoying, but perhaps manageable, were Renard willing to dedicate all the soldiers brought forth by the task force. Which he wasn’t. Out of the thirteen or so thousand soldiers brought by Erinyes, Renard was only willing to deploy a third.
Nor was the task force ready to arm the locals. Both munition and weaponry were limited as no one had expected to fight a proxy war. They had enough for their own soldiers and some spares and that was it. The point was somewhat moot as the Admiral was hesitant to arm the locals in any case. They didn’t really have anyone to spare to train the natives anyway.
Of course, neither Ashwood himself nor any of the Terran officers knew how to fight medieval battles, so they could provide little advice beyond common sense. Mostly, they worked separately.
Even so, they were making steady progress, with most of the South already secured, but Ashwood could see the writing on the wall.
Winning battles meant little when you were losing the war.
Pitched battles and sieges were easy. The Colonel just had to throw a couple hundred of Renard’s soldiers into the mix and victory was pretty much certain.
So, the Custodian’s forces just… didn’t.
It was something the locals struggled to understand let alone adapt to. Defences against roving bands of guerrilla fighters were nonexistent. Completely baffled, Ashwood had interrogated the Kirslev King until he admitted that normally most of their kingdom's internal security was taken care of by the Church.
While it explained why they struggled to adapt so much, Ashwood found himself quite dumbfounded as his opinion of the rebels’ competence dropped even further.
He had hastily helped them establish proper patrol routes, but the lacking infrastructure for such complicated things. In the end, he had been forced to waste some of Renard’s soldiers to shore up their lacking capabilities, while also dedicating some of his own remaining subordinates to establish a proper communications network. Ashwood sprinkled his own soldier around the kingdoms in ones or twos, conveniently getting them off Pleione and mostly out of Renard’s reach.
This was a lot less convenient than establishing proper infrastructure or even just giving comms to the locals, but the Admiral was very leery of handing out their technology. Ashwood didn’t agree as he thought the natives too primitive to glean anything from their technology, but it also gave him a nice excuse to get his people on planet. Renard didn’t like that too much either, however, there wasn’t a lot they could do when separated so thoroughly, so he had agreed to it eventually. It’d be enough to get them out of harm's way when the Admiral inevitably found out about the civil war.
The arrangement quickly proved fruitful, with many of the raiders falling prey to them. Much to Renard’s delight, they had located one of the bands which terrorised Kerania’s countryside while confirming the presence of at least one of the so-called miracle knights.
So off went a company of soldiers along with a gunship.
Their native allies rejoiced while Ashwood struggled to keep his mouth shut.
Spreadsheets didn’t lie and their conclusion was unanimous. Even if they wiped out all the remaining guerilla bands right this instant, it wouldn’t matter much. The Custodian had already achieved her objective. They were going to starve.
Kerania wasn’t that bad off, but the other two kingdoms had gotten it much worse.
Ashwood sighed and was just about to resume listening when Jane spoke through his comm, “Package secured. The Admiral wants your help with the interrogation.”
He sighed again, looking at the gathered men, “Gentlemen, something has come up. Captain Grimsson will stand it for me,” Ashwood nodded at the man who had been standing behind him, “Please excuse me.”
The Captain wasn’t looking terribly enthused about his fate, which made Ashwood feel a bit better. The gathered nobles seemed a lot happier about his departure.
Quickly, Ashwood made his way to one of the palace courtyards where they had been graciously allowed to land a shuttle.
Buckled in, the Colonel had plenty of time to weigh in the pros and cons of being one of only two people capable of speaking Sirnesian.
On the one hand, he was very curious about what they might learn. On the other, he’d much rather read a report a safe distance away. Preferably a star system or two. Of course, the latter wasn’t a real option. If Renard had the option, then Ashwood would almost certainly have never even learned about the capture.
“Docking initiated,” the pilot announced.
The Colonel’s mind settled down at the proclamation, ‘Too late to change anything.’
A few minutes later he was striding down the shuttle’s ramp into TRS Cerberos, though the sight of Jane waiting for him made him pause.
Giving her a questioning glance, the cyborg spoke up, “The Admiral wants us both there. To eliminate the risk of errors.”
Ashwood snorted. He could read the subtext. Not that he expected to find out anything worth hiding, but he almost pitied Renard for his terrible choices of translators.
“Where are we going?” He asked.
“Medical. There isn’t much left of the bastard,” Jane responded in monotone.
Ashwood frowned as he followed behind the Lieutenant, “And he’s awake?”
Jane shook her head, “Apparently he’s out of mortal danger now and the doctors can wake him, which seems good enough for the Admiral.”
The whole affair was looking more and more barbaric.
The Colonel’s frown intensified, “Eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind.”
Jane shrugged, “Guy would’ve died if we left him.”
Ashwood shook his head, “That is not my point.”
“I know,” Jane said with a ‘what can you do’ look.
Soon they neared their destination, indicated by the many soldiers standing around, some behind pre-fab barricades, of all things.
Ashwood grabbed one of the soldiers as he and Jane were passing the barricade, “What’s this supposed to be?”
The soldier angled his faceless helmet towards him, “Sir! Colonel Navarro’s orders! The enemy is very dangerous in CQC.”
Ashwood threw Jane a questioning glance.
“He tore up quite a few of the boys before we brought him down. That’s after I blew off his arm.”
Suddenly, Ashwood felt a lot less enthusiastic about satisfying his curiosity.
With a heavy sigh, he gave the surrounding soldiers one last look before entering the room. He looked around, noting that the room, though fit to house five or six beds, had only a single bed and patient, the rest emptied out. A doctor in scrubs and a surgical mask was examining a clipboard next to it.
The man laying on the bed wasn’t really remarkable. He was on the older side, had short brown hair and a scarred face. Sure enough, he was missing his left arm. Medical machines monitoring the prisoner’s health surrounded him while an IV drip fed something into his bloodstream. Medical restraints alongside regular handcuffs tied him to the bed.
“He doesn’t look very talkative,” Ashwood spoke.
The doctor gave him an annoyed look, “Obviously. The anaesthesia should wear off in five or so hours. He’ll be disoriented for the next hour or so after that. I certainly wouldn’t trust anything a person in such a state would say, but what do I know.”
“This was not my idea,” Ashwood clarified, somewhat mollifying the irate doctor.
“Whatever. If you agitate him too much he’ll break the sutures.”
With one last hostile look, the doctor left, leaving Ashwood and Jane alone, excluding whoever was watching the many cameras present, of course.
Ashwood was looking for the best wall to lean on when Jane approached the unconscious man and poked him.
He blinked, “What are you doing?”
“Just checking. Wouldn’t want him to be secretly awake, plotting our demise, right?” She said innocently.
Grimacing, Ashwood turned away from her and reviewed the video of the knight’s capture Jane took. Five hours seemed like a lot of time, but they’d need to go over their plan for the interrogation as well as any contingencies should the captive prove a threat.
He wanted the ship engineers to rig some sort of sleeping gas or the like in the room. If the video was any indication, then the knight couldn’t keep the barrier fully around himself. Gas should fell him easily enough.
A few minutes later, the prisoner opened his eyes.
