The Neos all turned toward the woods, and a flight of arrows came out and hit a trio of them. All were expert shots, killing shots, and the three men fell lifeless to the sward.
Then came the next surprise of the day, when a quintet of buckskin clad men, all of a kind, with long blond hair and green eyes, stepped out of the woods with arrows set to bows.
“What the fuck,” said the Neo woman. Her face was scrunched up in fear., and the men looked like they were about to panic.
“You looked like you could use some help,” said one of the archers in heavily accented German, turning his head toward Dirk.
Dirk’s breath caught in his throat as he saw the pointy ear tip that was revealed as the man turned. “They’re Elves,” he said, looking over at Anni. “Elves, of all things.”
“Why the hell are you shooting at us?” yelled one of the surviving Neos, dropping his pipe as an arrow tracked onto him. “We were just defending ourselves from these motherfuckers who attacked our friend.” He gestured at the leader of the group, who was trying to struggle back to his feet.
“You lie,” said the leader of the Elves, giving the speaker a cold eyed stare. “I can read the evil on you. On all of you.” He turned back to Dirk and flashed him a smile. “And the goodness on you. You are destined to great things on this world. Great things indeed.”
“What are you going to do to us?” asked the Neo woman.
“That is up to those you would have killed and robbed,” said the Elf, looking back to Dirk.
“Let them go,” said Dirk. “I think they had a lot of the fight taken out of them today.”
“Then you may leave,” said the Elf leader, glaring at the Neos. “But you will leave all weapons behind, and know that my people will be watching you.”
“You can’t leave us unarmed,” said the Neo woman. “We won’t last the night out there in those woods.”
“If you walk this path through the night you will come upon more of your people,” said the Elf. “Though I suggest you don’t try to rob and kill them, as there are many and they have mighty weapons.”
“The Army,” said Peter with a smile. “I’ll be glad to see them.”
“We will lead you to them tomorrow,” said the Elf, watching as the Neos, one supporting the leader with a shoulder, moved away. “Tonight you shall be our guests in the nearby village.”
“What about our stuff?” asked Karl Wilhelm, looking at the van.
“Your belongings will be fine,” said the Elf. “We will post guardians on them through the night.”
“Just bring some of the instruments and what we might need before morning,” said Dirk, looking his band mates.
“What about the acoustic stuff?” said Peter, reaching for a guitar case that had his Martin inside. “We really can’t use the electric stuff right now. You know, in case our hosts would like some entertainment.”
“What is in that strange looking container?” asked the Elf, pointing at the case that Peter was hefting.
“It’s just my acoustic ax,” said Peter. The Elves tensed and Peter quickly opened the case. “My guitar.”
“You are bards then?” asked the Elf with a smile.
The Germans looked at each other in confusion, but Dirk recognized the word. “That we are,” he said. “And I bet you’ve never heard of bards such as we.”
* * *
General Zachary Taylor looked out over the people gathered in his command tent. There was one other star out there, a German Brigadier that was an assistant division commander, and half a dozen colonels, three with the eagles of the US Army and three with the rank insignia of the Budeswehr. Outside sounded hammers and power tools and heavy equipment as engineers built bunkers and more permanent accommodations into the mountainside of the large valley they had picked as the center of the Earth people’s realm. More tractors could be heard further off as the engineering battalion cleared a semi-permanent strip for the helicopters that had gathered in the last day.
“I hope that there will be more people here in the next week,” said the General, standing up and pacing at the front of the conference compartment of the tent. “But I feel we need to get moving and use what we already have here while we still have it. I will turn the meeting over to Colonel Harris, my division G2, and therefore the intelligence officer of the whole force, to give a briefing on our current assets and capabilities. Colonel Harris.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the lanky Colonel. He rose to his feet and walked over to a stand that held a large pad of white paper. The officer looked around the tent for a moment, giving himself time to gather his own thoughts as he counted heads.
“I am sure you all know what kind of a predicament we are in,” said the Colonel, standing in front of the presentation stand and coming to a position of rest. “We don’t know how we got here. Or even where here is in relation to our home world. We don’t know how the physical laws work on this world, only that they work a bit different from our own. What we do know is we are in a hostile environment, and have along with us many of the same people we were sworn to protect on our home world. And we have it from a reliable source,” he frowned a bit at that word, “that our modern toys are only going to work for a little bit longer. Your guess is as good as mine as to how long, but they may fail us at any time. Communications and computers are already glitching more than we would like, and that is affecting what we are able to do with our widely scattered forces.”
The Colonel paused for a moment and looked around the room, his eyes asking for comments that might refute what he said. None were coming.
“So that is the situation and what we know, and don’t know,” he continued, flipping up the first sheet of the pad. “Now I’ll fill in the blanks on what we have under our order of battle at this time.”
The pad was a mass of boxes that had been arranged into groups. First a couple of lines of small boxes with military symbols on them for armor, infantry, artillery and other services. These were the battalions. Some had a minus sign near them that indicated they were not anywhere near full strength. Above them was a row of six larger boxes with the single X of a brigade, arrows connecting the battalion boxes to brigades except where battalions were assigned to the higher formations. Above the brigades were two boxes with division symbols above them, a pair of X’s. And at the top of the set was a straight line with the English word Corps above it. There were no German equivalents written on the chart, as all of the German officers spoke fluent English, a requirement in their officer corps for many years.
“We have divided the assets we have into two division sized forces under the control of a higher headquarters we will designate as Corps. No need to have a numerical designation, as we only have one corps at this time. We have grouped our combat assets, as well as some of the combat support assets, under the headings of first and second divisions. I will now go over what we have of those assets and how they will be deployed.”
The Colonel grabbed a pointer off the shelf of the chart and slapped it onto the chart.
“As far as we can tell from communications we have the better parts of two United States Army heavy brigades and a troop of armored cavalry. We have the better part of four German heavy Brigades and a recon battalion. We also have located a British mechanized battalion with attached tank company and a Canadian mech battalion. Add to that two battalions of US paratroopers, a short regiment of German mountain troops, and some commando units, along with attached artillery, trains and other units.”
The Colonel slapped his pointer at the brigade boxes and then the divisions.
“The General and his staff have decided that these groupings make the most logical sense, based on what we have on our order of battle. As you can see here, we have grouped the US heavy units, all of which are either already here in this valley or very near here, constituted as their native brigades, into the first division. We will add in the Canadian and British units as they arrive. Three of the German Brigades will go into the secon
d division. The reserve will consist of the fourth German heavy brigade, the paratroops and the mountain troops. All air assets will also be assigned to corps, such as we have.”
“Just what kind of air assets do we have?” asked one of the German officers, an Oberstleutnant with the insignia of a panzer officer. “And what about our other total assets?”
“I’ll go over that right now if everyone is ready,” said Harrison, looking over at the General, who gave his approval with a nod.
“We have a total of thirty-six helicopters which came through the portal intact and are still serviceable. That includes twenty-seven attack birds and nine light transports. And I’m not counting one news copter that we can use for recon. Basically right now they are one or two shot weapons, meaning we can put them all into the air for one mission, and most of them up a second time, and then we’re out of munitions for them. That’s why we’re attaching them to corps. So we have complete control over a valuable asset.
“Now as to other assets. Remember, these are mostly estimates, and some of these units may be taken out before they reach this haven. On the other hand, some unaccounted for stragglers may come waltzing in when we’re not expecting them. So this is not hard and fast, but the best we can come up with at this time.”
The Colonel picked up a clipboard off the table and flipped the first page, squinted at the notes, and pulled his glasses out of his pocket.
“That’s better,” he said, looking at the notes. “OK. We have just under forty thousand first line fully trained soldiers. Men and women of the U S Army, Bundeswehr, Royal Army and Royal Canadian Army. Plus maybe some French and Polish. Who knows? But a respectable fighting force by any means.”
The Colonel moved a finger over the clipboard and read for a moment, then looked back up. There was a lot of murmuring going on and he waited a second until the General cleared his throat and the mumbling stopped.
“Now we have about five hundred and fifty main battle tanks, over six hundred APC’s, eighty or so SP artillery pieces, and a couple of hundred other armored vehicles. Add to that about seven hundred trucks, including many filled with fuel, beans and bullets, and we have a considerable fighting force.”
One of the American battalion commanders raised a hand and Harrison pointed at him.
“Lt. Colonel Folsom,” said the officer, “First of the Seventeenth Mech. My question is why don’t we just dig in with all this firepower and let the enemy come to us?”
Harrison stared at the man for a moment as if he had been asked a question by an idiot. He looked over at the General and shrugged his shoulders, then looked back at the light Colonel.
“I thought we had already explained that part, Colonel Folsom,” said the G2 in an exasperated voice. “But in case we hadn’t, I will give the explanation once again. Our first day on this planet everything seemed to work as well as could be expected. Some interference with communications, but everything moved and shot. The second day the number of misfires by weapons increased threefold, and electronics glitches went up by the same factor. Third day saw another increase. The synopsis is that our equipment will continue to glitch at ever increasing rates until we have vehicles that won’t move and weapons that won’t shoot. And then we will not have a technological advantage over our opponent, and will not be trained and equipped to fight as they do. So we are forced to use our weapons on the enemy while they still work, and not wait until they come to us and nothing works at all. Now is that clear to everyone?”
Heads nodded and people whispered among themselves. The whispering rose to murmuring and continued until the General once again cleared his throat. Taylor was getting tired of doing that, but he couldn’t expect educated people to sit still listening to this stuff without comment.
“So we need to attack while we can and destroy or render useless the local forces at least,” continued Harrison. “Then we will have the time to organize our next level of response.”
“You didn’t tell them about the special weapons yet, Colonel,” said General Taylor, a slight smile on his face.
“I was getting to that sir,” said the Colonel with a frown. He looked around the table at the surprised expressions as the men there absorbed the word special. “We just happen to have brought three nuclear warheads with us to this planet,” he continued, watching the expressions. “We have two 155 shells with a yield of ten kilotons each. And one eight inch shell with a yield of twenty kilotons. Unfortunately we don’t know of any eight inch tubes. None came over with us. But we should be able to find some way of detonating it.”
“And gentlemen,” interrupted the General, his eyes going from face to face in the assembly, “we have no idea as to the shelf life of these munitions as well. So I want to use them within the next four of five days if we can find appropriate targets for them. Again, it’s a case of use it or lose it. Carry on, Colonel.”
“Yes sir,” said the G2, nodding toward his commander. “I will now give a synopsis of the political situation we find ourselves in. Basically, gentlemen, we have dropped into the middle of an Empire of beings that make Adolph Hitler look positively cuddly. I’m talking Death God worshiping necromancers who see us as extra energy to use in their own schemes. They will eat our souls, or sacrifice them, or enslave us to toil our lives out. Whatever they plan it is not something we want for ourselves or our people.”
The Colonel turned another pad in his notebook, then reached up to turn the paper on the display easel. The diagram there displayed a rough map of the region, with the positions of the Earth people penciled in.
“We are not in the worst possible situation, thank God,” said the Colonel, pointing at their positions on the right side of the map, the far east of the Empire. “The French, bless their souls, landed right here in the most densely populated portion of the Empire. This is where the capital, the Emperor, and the majority of the Imperial Army are hold up. And the French have landed right in the center of this hornet’s nest.”
“What about the Poles?” asked one of the German colonels.
“The Poles, for once in their history, seem to have won first place,” said Harrison. “They landed right smack in the middle of this Empire’s greatest enemy, the Kingdom of Lianardas, which is ruled by more of these Ellala, which I think some of our men have taken to calling High Elves. They, like us, are seen as agents of this prophecy, and have been welcomed into that Kingdom as saviors.”
“Well good for them,” said one of the American battalion commanders, smiling. “About time they got a break. But you mean to say that not all of these Elves are evil bastards out to take our immortal souls?”
“Probably not all of those in this Empire are like that,” said the G2. “Just like not all Russians were communists in the Soviet Union, or all Germans were Nazis under Hitler. But I’m sure that most of them are going to follow directives from above and do what they're told to do. So a good Elf fighting for his evil Emperor will still kill us if he can.”
“Make no mistake, gentlemen and ladies,” said the General from the head of the table. “We have a fight on our hands here. One we might not win. And not winning means we don’t survive, at least as any kind of free people. We have no reinforcements coming that we know of, and we don’t have the industrial might of Detroit or Stuttgart to feed our armies. We’re on our own, except for the forces that the Colonel will tell you might help us out. After he finishes the threat assessment. Go ahead Colonel.”
“OK,” said the officer, continuing on. “We are facing an Empire just a little smaller in area than ancient Rome. From the information we’ve gathered from the Conyastaya, that’s the Wood Elves to those who don’t know, there are probably about a hundred million intelligent beings in the Empire. Twenty million of them are the very long lived Ellala. We can count on there being about a million well trained and experienced soldiers among them, mostly lancers and archers. As well as the reserves and auxiliaries one would expect of that kind of population. All of them are very well trained
in the arts of war. Their arts of war, I might say. They are all swordsmen of experience. And they have several million infantry auxiliaries from the other people of the Empire. Now, despite their magic, I would expect our force to totally blow them away, if we had the time and the resupply we would expect back on Earth. But we don’t, so we will have to resort to other methods, which will be disseminated to you in the future after we have done what we can with what we have.
“We have friends here as well,” said the Colonel, looking back at his notes. “The Wood Elves and the Dwarves and some of the other peoples do not like the way the High Elves treat them and the world around them. We have millions of allies there as well. The Kingdom of Lianardas could be a godsend, with their legions of horsemen. And there are others we hope to bring over to our side, since they believe we are those their prophecies tell them will free this world.”
“I want to interject something here,” said the General, standing up and starting to pace at the front of the room. “Success breeds success. We will need to show these people that we can defeat the Ellala of this Empire in open combat. Not just in the short term, with our advanced weapons. But in the long term, using whatever we can come up with after the vehicles and weapons are gone.”
“Be nice to know how we can do that,” mumbled a voice that could be heard throughout the tent. There were other mumbles and murmurs going around as well, as men and women couldn’t believe what they had just heard.
“We have plans in the works to accomplish that as well,” said the General, raising his voice. “Right now that is on a need to know basis.”
“I have a question, General,” said a German Oberst with the insignia of artillery on his collar. “Just how many civilians do we have on this world? Or I guess I should rephrase that to ask how many German civilians we have on this world? How many are we going to be asked to defend? How many are there to draw from to build an army?”
Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1 Page 24
