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(5.5) Rebellion
Editor Note: This Intermission was a result of a one on one role play. Experience points have been awarded.
Rebellion
The Stepped Plains
Democratic Republic of Fra
Mid Rim World of Fra
With events of her visit to the City still fresh in her head, Ashla set by the single fire. Her anger rose when she heard the radio broadcast of Liberty Radio. The amount of suffering from what she heard and what she saw had to be stopped. It was clear to her now, but she didn't know how or what to do. She stabbed the fire with her stick as she smoldered. The fire let loss a flash of sparks in to the sky. She had to do something but she was pretty powerless. Visst wouldn't let anyone act until they had more information. “Well if he wants more intel, then that is what he will get!” she said as she got up and stomped off in to the darkness. She stopped just long to pick up a few things. “IF no one else will stand up for these innocent people, I will” she mumbled as she stormed off away from the camp.
Her march through the dark wooded area did allot to bleed off her anger. The area was cold and blanketed with a fresh layer of snow. It had been snowing all day long and finally let up late in the evening. Ashla hated the cold and she hated being cold in the dark even more. She would have been grateful for moon light. However the over cast and the new moon made the area even more darker than normal. Luckily the fresh snow did reflect some light and made it possible for her to move through the mountain forest without fear of others sneaking up on her. It was a lie but the thought gave her comfort. She pushed forward through the high knee high snow as she started to second guess her choice to leave the camp. Already two hours had passed and she had no idea where she was going or what she was going to do. Already Visst's voice came in to her mind, 'emotional filled actions tend to lead to bad choices.' She pulled her coat closed, “OH Shut up Visst. AHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” She half said then screamed as she fell.
The first sensation that came back on line was her feeling in her limbs. Ashla could feel that she wasn't cold anymore. She started to groan as she opened her eyes. She could see a bright light just above her head. As she blinked she saw that it was a rip in some kind of tent. The light of the day was shining through down on her her. She heard someone speaking to her in basic, “try not to move too much. You took a nasty fall last night.” Ashla looked towards the direction of the voice and saw a young human woman dressed in thick white clothes and a strange white hat on her head. She looked over, “Doctor, she is waking up” the woman said then returned her attention to Ashla, “Last night was pretty touch and go. We thought we were going to have to remove your leg.”
“My leg?” Ashla said confused as she looked to see her left leg bandaged up.
The woman fixed the covers so that Ashla would still be warm. “When you fell down the slope you broke your leg. The Colonel will tell you more when he gets here. But our best doctors worked all night on your leg trying to save it.” The woman looked down at her arm and Ashla could see for the first time the woman's lower arm had been removed. “A few months ago, a stray bullet hit me while I was tended to wounded at the side of a battlefield. The doctor didn't get a chance to see me before the infection set in. They had no choice by to remove it before it spread and killed me.”
“You were lucky that it was so cold last night. If it was summer, this could have been very different and we would not be having this conversation.” a man dressed in white said as he walked up. He was a Nautolan and bore a broad smile. “She” refering to the woman dressed in white who was now slowly getting up, “never left your side during the night.” He looked around the full tent, “Suffering is always plentiful here.”
A second man walked up, Ashla smiled a bit as she noticed that he was a Togruta. “Okay, Thank you Doctor for your services. There are so many others that require both of your attention. Please leave us.” he said as he walked right up to her bed. She noticed that he walked with a limp and carried a cane.
Both of them nodded as they withdrew, the man said, “Yes Colonel.” In a short moment, they were alone. “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Colonel Jir Laal. You are not a prisoner.” Once they left he looked at her with a smile as he set down on her bed and laid his cane across his legs, “Tell me what do you remember of last night?”
“I am Ashla, thank you for the help” She leaned back feeling foolish for wondering off the way she did. “Um, I was walking, then I remember falling. Rolling in the snow and then, um, nothing else.” she said as she tried to recall what had happened as she was walking around in the dark.
He nodded, “well you damn near got yourself killed last night. If one of my scouts had not stumbled on you, you would have been good as dead.” he said said softly as he played with her pistol. She also could tell that while he was not lying outright, he was holding back something to the story. She wasn't sure of it. “I have to admit though, I am happy to meet you finally. My men have been reporting your activities since your starplane landed a few days ago.”
“You saw us land” she asked surprised.
He nodded, “you landed right in our backyards almost. It was hard to miss you.” He looked at her bandaged leg. “Doc Kit does fine work and his nurse is a credit to her field.” he said looking over the bandaged limb, “So many others couldn't hack it up here in the mountains. The pair have been with us since the rebellion started.” He slowly got up, “Doc, can she walk?” he yelled and the Doctor looked over from another bed.
“Yes but take it easy on her. Not too much walking. Plenty of breaks, Have her back by diner so we can change the bandages.”
He turned back to her, “Okay, so you have a pass if only for a few hours” he said with his hand held out for her to take.
“How long have I been here” she asked confused she took his strong hand as he braced himself.
He helped her up from the bed and took much of her weight as she leaned on him, “Well my men found you late last night. They worked on your leg during the night and you rested all morning and through lunch.” he smiled as he helped her mover from the bed, “Don't worry, lunch was worth missing. I warned the cook that if he serves garber nut stew one more time I will have him shot.” he said jokingly.
Ashla looked around the medical tent and saw a level of medical technology that surprised her. Nearly half of the soldiers recovering had missing limbs of some type. There were priests moving back the tent speaking with the soldiers as the limited medical staff were clearly overwhelmed. As they moved through the large tent she saw through a small canvas passageway another medical tent. There as a soldier at the end of the passageway. At first all she saw was his back, but when he turned to face her, she saw his face was badly burned. It was not like any kind of burn she had seen before. His hair was nearly completely fallen out and his eyes were bandaged up. “I want to see in their please.” The Colonel helped her hobble down the small passageway. Ashla could feel the cold from outside and the three stoves did little to keep the cold out. Bring a spacer on the fringes of the Republic, one sees just about anything. So Ashla knew about radiation burns before and seen them on an arm or even chest. But she had never seen anything on this level. “What happened to them?”
While she knew he was in a bit of pain while helping her move he never led her away from what she wanted to see, “They were part of our sister Regiment out on the North Ridge. Their camp was hit with a Flaming Cloud bomb. It was over a days march from here and we saw the Flaming Cloud climbing in to the air. We sent soldiers to go help, they brought these poor souls back. A few days later these burns started to show up and then they started to loss their hair. One by one, they are dying and our best doctors don't know why or how to save them.” the pain on his face of the situation washed away the pain from his leg, “I have seen men die on the battlefield. That is one thing, sad, but still different. This, horrible death, I wouldn't even wish on my worst enemy. Its like they are dying from the inside out and nothing we can do to stop it or even ease the death.”
As she moved around the ward, she couldn't help but feel horrible for the level of suffering. She noticed that most had their eyes bandaged and others weren't. When asked, she was told that the few soldiers that didn't have their eyes bandages were from the unit sent to help the wounded. She asked a few of the eye witnesses what they saw at the moment of attack. The stories were not consistent but on a few details they matched. Early morning there was a whooping sound that came over the ridge and they saw a large black dot leaving their area. A few hours later, the attack happened. There was first no sound just a bright light. Then came the rushing wind like a massive storm. The winds soon turned to burning winds as they were pulled towards the flaming cloud. She asked when the attack happened, and was told that it happen about just over a week ago. There hadn't been any more flaming cloud attacks since that one. Though the whooping flying dot has been seen moving about the Northern Ridge area in some strange box like pattern.
She was taken from the medical tents and led out in to the larger encampment. She saw that the camp was well hidden in the dense forest. The encampment was well laid out to avoid detection from low technology but she also knew that they could easily be detected by more advanced technology. She was led over to a group of wagon and allowed to rest while she watched soldiers training on a field. They were lined up in a rank and file formation with their muskets all ready. They would move in formation and at commands lower their weapons and fire at one time. Large plums of smoke covered the unit as they quickly reloaded their weapons. The Colonel moved off to tend to his unit for a moment while she rested next to the wagon. Looking around she saw that of the five wagons, two were filled with shovels and the other three were filled with barrels of gun powder. She saw black powder cannons and mortars packed and tucked within the trees. She also noticed a pair of bi-planes covered in canvas.
“Hey, so you are the off worlder” a man said walking up slowly offering her a cup of coffee. “I am Garild, I am an off worlder too.”
She looked at him and took a leap of faith, “you are the off world allies that came to help fight the Reich.”
He sighed, “Is it that obvious” he asked jokingly. “If I had known that Field Marshal Kessler was here, I would have never given them a thing. I would have convinced them to fight differently.”
She looked at him sipping the hot coffee and enjoying its warmth, “What do you mean? What makes him so different?”
“Kessler is a driven man and no fool. The man has never tasted defeat on the battlefield. What I don't understand is why he is out here. Something brought him to this world.” He tried to explain.
She looked out at the training troops as she noticed the calvary men on horse back practicing their charges. She looked back to the man, “So you are this mysterious commander sent by the Council of Free Worlds?”
He laughed, “Oh god no! I couldn't lead myself out of a paper bag. I am tech support. To make sure that their smiths know how to make the parts needed to repair the equipment that we brought. And to build new ones. We found out about this militia and how they were cut off. So we brought up a some new equipment and gear for them. That was when we learned about Kessler being here. At first we thought it was another deep Reich unit testing the waters again.”
She cut him off, “what do you mean testing the waters?”
“We from time to time, the Reich will send out deep patrols to see which worlds were friendly to their ideology and which weren't. These patrols rarely led to major engagements. When they were faced with stern resistance the patrols would just move on. Normally these patrols would travel about a month or two from their boards. Never before have we heard of them traveling this far before. In fact we didn't even know about it till six months ago when we heard from a Generation Ship that their small fleet was spotted in the region. We hastily put together what we could and headed out here. I will admit the mission was put together allot less organized then I would have preferred but we really didn't have time to plan better. By having the local worlds turn the patrols back, we have been able to keep their expansion in check for nearly fifty years. This patrol was a change in their strategy and risked our own plans to stop them” he explained.
“And this Field Marshal Kessler is something new also” she asked surprised.
He looked out at the troops training, “You don't get it. This guy is not just some Field Marshal or General. He is their fall back plan when they have to win a battle. I have seen conflicts that should have seen the Reich loss hands down turn in to their favor just with him arriving to the battle. If he wasn't such a monster, one could really love his ability to control a battle. He has a way of sensing the change of a battle and using it against his enemies. But he is a monster, make no mistake about that. Each time, the Council moves against the Reich. The first thing they check is where is Field Marshal Kessler” he explained with great passion.
She turned her body to see him better, “Tell me about this Council of Free Worlds I heard about.”
“Allot of people mistake the Council for being a large organized group of worlds. We're not. In fact we are less organized than many even consider. It is the Reich which have brought the Council in to being, though the Emperor would have you believe that the threat of the Council is the reason behind his military build up as of late. About ninety years ago, the Reich moved on a world and deviated it. There were refugees that fled this ill fated world. Among them was Harshina, a writer and poet. He told the story of the Reich invasion through poems and stories. The work spread across the region and leaders finally took notice of the Reich's expansion. Summits were called and treaties were signed. What came from all of this was the Treaty of the Council of Free Worlds. It spells out that if any signed world is attacked by the Reich all worlds would move to stop the attack and launch their own attacks on the Reich. The Council started off small but grew fast. We are over twenty signatory worlds and ten ally worlds. We are only unit against the Reich though. Signatory worlds are not permitted to attack each other but they do attack other worlds in our region. These foolish attacks make us weak and does not show a strong face to the Reich. So that is who we are.”
She nodded as she turned her attention back to the training soldiers. He reached in to his pocket and pulled out a small box. As he continued to watch the men and woman train in the large field he pulled a small white paper tube from the box. He offered it to Ashla “the Council does mean well. But there is no single voice leading them and many of us who man the field units that fall directly under the Council really don't trust their military experience.”
She waved off the offer, “you guys have fought the Reich before. Don't you have military commanders?”
He put the box away then lit the tube in his mouth and blew out some smoke from his mouth. “Yeah but normally to stalemates then the church steps in and helps us end the conflicts. I talked with a Reich POW one time before he was sent home. He told me of military schools and academies were children are taught to lead troops. The military arms of the Council member worlds are generally volunteer militaries. The last major battle which lasted longer then a few days was a boarder war. The Reich pushed in to a member world's territory along a wide span of unpopulated space. It was five years ago, but I remember the war well. It was the first time that the entire Council mobilized for war. Most of us thought that this was it. This was going to be the big one. Most of the Council task force never saw the Reich forces. They had withdrew before the Council forces arrived. Well all but one that is. In one system, Kessler led the advance. Back then, hardly anyone knew anything about him. He was just known on the Cousin of the Emperor. If we had only knew the truth at the time, it would have been different I think.” he said looking down at his white smoking tube.
He continued his story, “I was part of that task force that saw first combat with Kessler. Our leader, an Admiral, had been selected from a group of CEO's who owned mining companies within the system. We had over fifty warships and a nine to one odds on the Reich forces. But Kessler had laid a trap for use. I remember as we moved through the system searching for the Reich ships, we followed what we thought was a wounded corvette. It lead us right through a minor asteroid field. Kessler had planted his heavy artillery and armor on asteroids.” he looked to her, “Who does that” he asked in a bit of confusion. “Even before his ships moved in to range to fire, we were being cut to pieces. But that was only one part of the trap, the asteroids played a secondary role. As his forces closed our ships were unable to effectively maneuver. Between being out flank by his ships, his artillery and armor cutting in to our hauls, and the asteroids blocking our fields of fire, we had no hope of winning.”
He took enough drag off his tube and let the smoke out, “No one heard what happen to us till the Reich invited a peace delegation to the system. In exchange for releasing myself and the thousands of POW's the Member world was forced to concede ownership of the system to the Reich. It was an embarrassment. The next battle a few years later where the Council mobilized again, soldiers brought paper and extra clothes with them expecting to be taken prisoners.” He took a heavy drag on his tube and blew out more smoke, “sometimes I and others of my explorer unit hope to find a real leader that would lead us against the Reich.”
She looked out over the force as they trained, “if you know its hopeless then why let them fight?”
“Thats the thing, normally the Reich doesn't fight wars or battles to win. Unless they are looking for something they know they want, they only move in to test the waters of a world or empire. Small hit and run battles are what they do first. So by arriving shortly before or after the Reich arrives we can help the defenders put up a good show. It usually allows the Reich to leave the system much sooner than they expected to. We also help organize movements that will ensure that the Governments don't become friendly to the Reich. When we arrived here, he never expected to find a front line unit headed up by Kessler. Since that first battle, Kessler has only lead operations where they expect to take something and hold it. I have tried to talk the Colonel out of this foolish attack. But is dead set in taking the city. A few days ago, his scouts saw a huge portion of the King's elite guards matching towards the coast. Two full regiments marched towards the coast which left the city under defended with only a single regiment. Scouts have reported about two thirds are within the City while the rest are patrolling the area where the Reich forces are encamped. The Colonel believes that the Reich will remain out of the fight. The Church has assured him that the Reich has agreed to remain out of the direct conflict and allow the people of decide their own fate.” He explained
She looked at him, “You don't think they will remain out it?”
He looked at her once more, “Even if their military does stay out of the fight, which is unlikely. All that I have seen from Kessler, I don't think he could resist staying out of it. If he takes command, they can't win.” There was a sense of dread in his voice as he spoke.
The Colonel announced his approach as he relayed heavily on the cane that he walked with, “Good news!” he half yelled as he walked up. “I have a message from our command group” he said as he handed the paper over to the man next to Ashla, “They said that because the war is going bad for them on the home front, that not only should we consider attacking the City. We should put every soldier we can on the task if for no other reason than to force the King to fight on two fronts.”
The man looked to Ashla once more, “See what I mean.” he turned his eyes back to the Colonel, “You still don't get it.”
“No Sir! You don't get it. You act like this man is some kind of God of War that can't be beaten. Your new weapons you brought us make us a far better match than before. We can win, you just have to have hope.” The Colonel fired back with a bit of anger in his voice.
The man shook his head and slipped off the wagon, “You will throw their” pointing at the training soldiers, “lives away. For what? A chance of victory that could never be held.”
Ashla held up her hand, “wait, I have to ask something.” Both men paused and looked at her, “First what does the Council know of these Flaming Cloud bombs?”
The man shook his head, “Before we arrived here, we never heard anything like it. I witnessed the last one to go off last week. I have never seen or heard of anything like it. We reported it back to the Council but have not heard back on it yet.”
She looked around, “look I can't promise anything but my friends. They are the best warriors I have ever seen. If I can speak with them, we might be able to recruit them to help in the attack. Kessler might be smart but they are better. Trust me, they will make a difference in this battle.”
The Colonel nodded, “I will give you one of my best riders to return you to your camp.”
“I really don't think this is the best idea” the man said shaking his head.
Within moments, Ashla had her things back. She was helped on to the back of a mount and the rider sped her off back towards the group. Time was against her, but since she landed on this world she finally felt like she had a propose. There were so many people suffering and if she could help stop that suffering then she had to try. During the ride she knew who she had to convince and who she could count on. Somehow she felt that Visst was going to be the biggest problem for her. She had to convince him that helping these people here and now would serve the greater good. That helping them drive back the Reich would help everyone one. Plus she had to get all this new found information back to the group. There was still one question that did bother her. Why was Field Marshal Kessler here, on this world so far from home, in the first place. Even people that spent allot of time knowing and understanding Kessler's actions were confused by this new move. And this didn't sit very well with her either.
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