Chapter 4 - The General

This is starting to remind me of Atlas.

Looking at the handcuffs in her wrists and the bare cell she was currently in, that was the thought running on Ruby's mind.

She tried to recall what lead her to this situation...

⁓

They arrived an hour before in front of the gates of Epidamnus, in the middle of the night. The murmur of waves filled her senses, accompanied by the fragrant scent and saltiness of the sea.
A city wall, 15 meters high, stretched from coast to coast, facing defiantly the barren wastelands: judging by its conformation, Ruby deduced that the city was built on a peninsula, allowing the ocean to act as a natural barrier for most of its perimeter, the man-made fortification built only in the strip of land connecting it to the rest of the continent.

Three guards began to approach their car. Ismail, after getting out from the vehicle - not without some effort, as shown from his barely hidden grimace of pain – stopped the huntress with a gesture from doing the same. Looking straight into her eyes, with a tone that sounded both demanding and pleading, he said:

"Stay here, let me talk to them."

Still shaken by her new discoveries, she didn't have it in her to argue against it and complied without challenge.
She watched as his travelling companion reached the three men and began to speak with the one in the middle. They were too far away to listen to their conversation, but at one point she noticed the three men glancing at her for a moment, followed by the two guards at the side walking towards her, after a slight nod by the one who quite clearly was their superior.
The outraged gesticulation and shouts coming from Ismail raised a grave suspicion on her mind, which was proved correct as the two soldiers, now in front of her, bluntly stated, while showing a pair of handcuffs:

"You need to come with us, ma'am."

Ruby weighted her options: for a split second a small, irrational fragment of herself, confused and exasperated by the whole situation, urged to fight, to oppose her capture and to run away.
But as soon as it formed, the notion was immediately wiped away: doing that would cause great problems, to her and especially to these people. She could not let her own issues and grief endanger and harm these people, guiltless of what had occurred to her.
With that in mind, as an answer to their statement, she simply surrendered herself to them, melancholy plainly displaying her inner feelings.

As she was apprehended, Ruby had a closer look at her new "jailers": they wore a completely different uniform compared to Ismail, a bright turquoise in contrast to his dark olive, and it was clear at first glance that they lacked any sort of armour underneath it. The weapons were also different: they were equipped with some standard battle rifle; a more familiar shape, albeit obviously an unknown pattern, loaded with ammunitions that she could tell weren't Dust-made.

Flanked by the two soldiers, Ruby was escorted towards a car waiting near the gate. Bits of dialogue were overheard by the huntress, as she grew closer to Ismail and the guard leader.

"-et me report to general Kastriot, I can vouch for her!"

"You can do what you want with your military leader, but right now I have my orders to follow."

The two stopped their heated back and forth as they caught sight of the captured girl passing nearby. Ismail painstakingly went straight to her, offering reassurance and promises of her well-being.

"As soon as I talk with the general, we'll get you out of there. Trust me."

Despite everything that happened, his concern over her was quite endearing.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine." She said to him, a soft smile forming from her lips. "In the meantime, take care of my sweetheart for me while I'm gone."

Ismail looked at the girl quizzically, before realization hit him: Crescent Rose was still on the car, left totally unnoticed by the two guards escorting her. While she didn't like to be separated from her weapon again, she preferred if it was with someone she knew, even if barely, instead of confiscated by complete strangers.

After getting in their car, they crossed the gate and she was moved inside the city. Between the walls and the actual urban environment, the sight of a huge military camp, set in an otherwise empty open space, filled the girl's vision. Despite still being dark, she could make out the shape of countless tents, barracks and vehicles. It must have been able to house thousands of soldiers.

They didn't linger too much there, as the road brought them straight into the actual city.

While they travelled through the many roads, sometimes running parallel to the harbour, others dwelling deep into the inner parts of the city, she couldn't help but compare it to the city of Vale: both of them were huge port cities, albeit with seemingly different functions, as Vale's port was more of the commercial kind, whereas Epidamnus' was solely focused on the fishing activities, judging by the seafood the huge ships were unloading.

The poor illumination and the brevity of the trip didn't allow her to have a better view of it, but one thing was plainly obvious: Epidamnus was several times bigger than Vale, with a population considerably higher.
Though it was currently suffering from overpopulation, judging by the myriad of people camped and stationed on the streets, in the squares, in the parks, and in every available place there was.
Entire families and communities were camped, forming micro-community inside the bigger city of Epidamnus.
They were refugees, forced to run away from their homes, seeking protection against a great threat.

And she could guess what they were fleeing from...

The car finally stopped inside a vast, heavily fortified building in the harbour, its structures ranging on both land and water. After exiting the vehicle, the two soldiers handed her to another pair of different-looking guards. These wore full armour, with heavy boots and gloves covering their feet and hands, and helmets obscuring their face. One of them was holding a shotgun, by the looks of it, while the other one had a maul one on hand, as he used the free one to grab her chains and start dragging her inside the edifice.

No word was uttered by the two guards, as they escorted her inside a labyrinth of dungeons, barracks and armouries. Eventually, they reached a vast chamber filled with numerous cells. As they closed the door of the empty cell she was forced in, one of them, with a guttural harsh voice, spoke to her, for the first and last time.

"Wait here, for the Emperor's judgement to come and decide your fate."

⁓

In the quiet of this cell, all the weight of what happened to her, both before and after the awakening in this new world, finally sank in, squashing her as easily as a child crushes a grape.

First the fate of her friends and all those people after Cinder's attack, which was still unknown…

And now this…

Stranded on an alien world, part of some sort of galactic empire of "space humans", which were a thing, apparently.

Was Remnant, her world, a small part in a universe filled with alien kingdoms?

Was it even in the same cosmos, or had she been transported in an entirely different dimension or universe, as if she was part of those comic book stories, she and Jaune sometimes read on Beacon, where crazy stuff like this happened?

Years ago, she would have found these possibilities to be ludicrous and absurd, but after everything she had learned and experienced recently, how could she disregard these options?

How would she find their way home?

Was it even possible?

...She didn't know what to do...

It was then that the selfless girl, the young girl who always put the needs of others above her own, allowed herself to vent her own feelings.

Ruby slowly curled in on herself, in an effort to make herself smaller, drawing her knees to her chest and hugging them tightly, as she buried her face in them. Tears crossed her fair-skinned face and soft sobs filled the otherwise silent space.

And she remained like this, crying herself to sleep.

⁓

"Are you sure you are fine, sergeant Ismail? We could have waited a little more for you to visit the medicae."

"Thank you, general, but I can still stand on my own feet, and that's enough for now. Plus, I had to inform you as soon as possible about what we discovered on the Iraxi mountains."

Ismail stood at attention, his focus entirely set on the man in front of him.

General Kastriot.
Supreme leader of the Arbanian Janissaries.
Once, hundreds of regiments had followed his orders. Now, he commanded just one, barely eight thousand strong, the last survivors of their homeworld.

If you had to describe him with a single world, it would be statuesque.
It was as if one of those awe-inspiring sculptures, depicting mighty military heroes, suddenly had come to life, its stone turned to flesh and bone.
He didn't wear his armour, just a uniform and the traditional Arbanian wool garment - similar to the one of Ismail, though his had gold embroidery alongside the red and black ones- together with his power sword, the trusted weapon never once leaving the general's side.
A full, white beard, betraying his advanced age, might have given the impression of a frail old man, but his robust body, with well-defined muscles, exuded a vigorous, youthful strength.
This was a man that led by example, fighting side by side to his men in the front line.
Wisdom and experience, combined with brawn and valour, fully encapsulated in the general.

The two weren't the only ones present in the command hut.

Lieutenant Bajramaj was where she always had been: at the general's side, data-slate at hand, constantly processing incoming data and statistics, which then she relayed to him in reports so detailed and comprehensive, that they would not look out of place coming from a high prefect of the Adeptus Administratum.
Her radiant green eyes stared intensely at the wounded sergeant, as if to extract even the most minute bit of information from his look and state.

Leaning against the wall, the granite, imposing figure of Commissar Merneith was looking at Ismail as well. But hers was a judgemental glare, piercing at his soul in search of even the smallest hint of cowardice and dereliction of duty.
The slightly amused smirk she gave him after that did less to reassure the guardsman, instead filling him with a sense of dread that he tried with all his might not to showcase.

"Very well. At the very least sit down." Kastriot said, gesturing at a chair in front of his desk. "We wouldn't want you to lose consciousness in the middle of your report now, would we?"

"Sir, I -"

"That's an order, soldier."

His tone was calm, but it was filled with such authority, that Ismail found no way to argue against it.
After sitting down, the general nodded to Ismail, prompting him to continue.

"I will provide a more extensive, written report to you and Lieutenant Bajmaraj as soon as I am able, so right now I'm going to get straight to the point: we are not dealing with a regular feral ork infestation on this planet, like we previously believed. A full-scale ork invasion is gonna attack the capital and, by extension, all Kanrilia. And with all due respect, sir, I don't know if we are able to stop it on our own."

The stillness following such statement filled quickly the room, the tension it generated so thick it could be cut with a knife.
General Kastriot, his fingers intertwined and resting over his mouth, betraying no emotion of any kind, save from sharp focus, was the one who broke the dreadful silence.

"... Elaborate, sergeant."

"When we reached the Iraxi mountains, we found that the orks there weren't as undeveloped and primitive as we were told: they had weapons, vehicles and equipment that simple feral orks shouldn't possess. We discovered the answer to that enigma shortly after. At closer look, the greenskins seemed to be divided into two groups: the feral orks, slightly better armed and organized that they should be, but still recognizable, and a more advanced group, clearly commanding their primitive brethren, many of them bearing the insignia of their respective clans, like the ones we fought on Tirax eight years ago."

Realization of what this meant hit the listeners with the force of a thunder hammer.

"Sir, it is clear that orks from off planet have landed on Kanrilia, using the native feral orks to build their strength in order to attack this world."

"How is that possible?" Merneith gave voice to the question everybody was asking.
"No ship entered or left this system in the last months, because of the increasing instability of the Warp. Only the transport carrying us was able to translate in-system, and it didn't do so unscathed."

"We were aware of this." replied Ismail. "That's why trooper Arian and I opted to head deeper into the mountains, to see if we could find any answer to their unexpected appearance. The concentration of greenskins was exponentially higher the more we advanced, and we risked detection several times. When we reached the inner part of the region, in the valley amidst the stormy mountains of the core, we discovered the remains of a crashed ork battleship."
Ismail's voice then lowered, showing a slight hint of sorrow and regret "It was then that we were spotted and were forced to retreat. And Arian... Arian did his duty, like a true Arbanian and a loyal servant of the Emperor..."

General Kastriot seemed to be the only one that heard his last words, as evident from the veiled look of sympathy and approval he gave to the sergeant.

The commissar and the lieutenant, on the other hand, were deep in conversation, as a result of the man's discovery in the inner regions of Iraxi.

"How could an ork battleship enter the system and crash on the planet unnoticed?!"

"It probably exited the warp far beyond the Mandeville point, outside the range of this world's limited auger scans. Likely it was heavily damaged by the translation in real-space and, as it drifted aimlessly without power, it hit the asteroid belt in the outer part of the system. This collision caused it and several asteroids to change their course towards Kanrilia, in the meteor storm hitting the planet 7.3 months prior to our arrival, during which it was almost certainly mistaken as one asteroid among many."

"An "asteroid" hitting the continent, instead of crashing on the oceans, should have still been investigated by the local authorities!"

"It landed on the uninhabited region of the world. The local Censorium deemed it as unremarkable and left it like that." Bajramaj responded, while checking the related file in her data-slate.

"Someone should be held accountable for-"

"Enough."

The single word leaving Kastriot's lips put an end to the two women's exchange.

"At this point, it doesn't matter how they arrived. They are here, and that is the only fact we should focus on." he stated, looking at both the ladies to be sure they were on the same page. He then turned his attention on the wounded sergeant:
"Sergeant, from your scouting mission, what is your estimation of the enemy's number and military assets?"

Ismail remained silent for a moment, trying to gather what he saw into a cohesive outline.

"During our brief stay, I saw war bikes, buggies and trucks in the hundreds, perhaps thousands. Dozens of their crude versions of tanks, and even a handful of walkers. There were also countless squiggs, most likely trained by the feral orks, including several of their more gargantuan specimen."

He let the information sunk in for a moment, which blackened the mood of the entire room.

"As for their number," he continued "I can only give an approximate guess: the non-native greenskins were tens of thousand, possibly reaching the one hundred thousand strong. The feral ones... those mountains are infested with them, and I'm unable to give a solid number. But I can safely say that they outnumbered the other ones many times over."

Dismay and terror would have taken hold in the heart of regular people upon learning the massive size of the threat approaching them, but the three listeners, just like all the other men and women of this regiment, had experienced some of the worst nightmares this cursed universe could conceive, fighting and suffering against horrors that would drive most mad with despair; so instead they regarded this news with cold rationality.

"So, here's our current situation:" Kastriot stated with pensive candour "we are up against a greenskin incursion, hundreds of thousand strong at least, likely more, heavily armed and led by a competent and powerful leader, which is about to or is already marching towards Epidamnus."

Sensing the confusion of the sergeant regarding the last two parts of his words, he clarified.

"It is quite obvious, in hindsight. Orks follow strength alone, and only a strong member of their detestable kind would be able to end the infighting that plagued the feral greenskins of this world for millennia, and give them a semblance of organization and cohesion."

"Furthermore," he added "the xenos refrained from launching an immediate assault on the capital, and instead made them wait for months, allowing only minor incursions on the smaller settlements while building their strength, safe in the mountains. This shows a certain degree of military acumen, at least for the standard of the orks."

"As for why I say they are already on route here, the reason is simple: you are here, injured but still alive." he pointed out, realization quickly dawning on Ismail.

"The leader will be aware that its underlings have failed to kill you. It will know that they have lost the element of surprise. Sure, the possibility that you died before reaching the city and inform us would cross its mind, but if it is half as smart as I believe it is, it won't risk it. Better to seize the moment and attack immediately before giving us a chance to organize."

Turning his attention to his aide, he continued: "Lieutenant, remind us our current strength and, as soon as you can, give me your rough estimate on when will the orks reach the city."

"As we are all aware, our regiment counts seven thousand, five hundred and fifty-two guardsmen. The Planetary Defence Forces had already suffered considerable losses before our arrival and currently stands at fourteen thousand, one hundred and thirty-one men. Even reinforcements from the Adeptus Arbites and other armed groups won't raise the current locals' number beyond the twenty thousand."

"This excludes the possibility of launching a pre-emptive assault," said Merneith, her arms crossed, displeased by her own statement, "as our forces are significantly inferior to the orks. Plus, they have the field advantage: the mountains and the hills would allow them to make ambushes and traps."

"Throne, I wished our positions were reversed." Kastriot murmured, for the first time irritation evident in his voice.
"If we had been located in the mountains, we could have fought like we did at home: we would have used the terrain to spread their forces thin and use hit-and-run sorties to disrupt their supply chain. Their vastly superior number would have amounted to nothing. But alas, that isn't the case..."

For an instant, the man remained silent, simulations and scenarios of the upcoming battle already taking form in his mind. Then...

"Lieutenant, you will contact the rest of the Command Staff and the officers, and inform them of the situation. Commissar Merneith, you do the same with the PDF leaders, with Judge Alulim and with Governor Alalgar." he ordered. "Tell them I want a meeting to discuss our plan for the upcoming war early in the morning".

As Ismail was about to speak, Kastriot raised his hand, anticipating his thoughts: "But before that, we need to finish hearing the sergeant's report, especially about how he was able to escape his pursuers and come back to us."

The attention of the three commanders shifted once more towards Ismail, and the man didn't miss the spark of curiosity flashing in the old general's eyes.

"So sergeant, tell us about the girl that saved your life."