Okay y'all, time to get down to some serious business:
Chapter 4: Revelations and preparations.
Interlude
It has been said many times down history that those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are inevitably doomed to repeat them, and even on the planet Zi this saying has proven true time and time again, not least now, as the Chazidi Dictator, Field Marshal Lucius Storm seeks out, even as we speak, a deadly zoid of the past, much as did Minister Prozen of the Guylos empire more than two hundred years before. The object of his search, a zoid more deadly than the Death Saurer, whose fifteen hundred years of slumber have rendered it little more than a myth known only to the inhabitants of one single village in the middle of Chazidi territory, the village where Lucius Storm was born...
Until now, when a military construction team unearthed a ruined and abandoned Zoidian complex, whose carvings tell the story of this zoid, a machine that can turn ally against ally and brother against sister through its most devastating weapon. Now the search is on to uncover the primal fury of the Rare Kaiser.
This obsession has led many within his own ranks to consider him unstable and thus unfit for the duty of command, but they are more concerned, for the time being, with winning the war that his lust for power has dragged them into, hoping that victory over the greatest military threat on Zi might safeguard their power and temper the insane excesses of their dictator and commander in chief. These men risk everything to bring some sort of stability to their nation, although their motives are perhaps not so pure as they might be, given as Colonel Casage, one of the prime figures n this particular struggle, plans to seize power himself, but this power struggle may mean life or death for the people of the Chazidi Free States, and as such, is perhaps the most important struggle of this our time.
End of Interlude
It had been most of a week since the conference, and nothing seemed to have returned to normal in the days that had followed. The Red River base, which was incidentally sited a few miles upriver from the site of the base of the same name from the Helic-Guylos war of over two hundred years before, was crawling with personnel, most of whom were arriving from other bases throughout the coalition, doing their jobs and in some cases returning to their bases of origin, but in other cases staying because they had too much to be doing and too little time to do it all in. The most important arrival perhaps, was that of the coalition research and development team, whose job it would be to repair and upgrade many of the zoids on the base, including repairing Brady Cryer's ailing Command Wolf, which still looked to be an incredibly bleak prospect, even now that it had recovered enough not to deafen everyone around it with anguished metallic howls, but they had now begun to work their magic on the zoids of the base, the portable organoid system that they had developed from the shell of an old laptop computer now being wired up to Brady's Command Wolf, the pair of them inside some sort of energised cocoon, ready to evolve into a more powerful wolf perhaps.
Meanwhile, in Chazidi territory, another meeting was taking place aboard the Ultrasaurus "Bastion", and those attending this particular conference were perhaps the most important front line commanders in the entire Chazidi armed forces.
These men were: Colonel Zack Casage and his adjutant Major Adric Lester, Rear-Admiral Christian Zenevas, Air Marshal Thaddeus Martin, Vice-Admiral Darius Kolan, Major-General Roberta Hessling, and Lieutenant-Colonel Pedro Maximus.
The main topic for discussion was one that was the most important thing that they could conceivably discuss, the preservation of order within the Free States, and the curbing of the excesses of their commander-in-chief, if at all possible.
"Right," began Colonel Casage, who was presiding over the meeting, "we all know more or less why we're here, but I shall give us all a brief description of the current state of affairs so as to refresh our memories. To put it bluntly, the Free States are on the verge of an uprising, the excesses of Lord Storm are growing wilder and wilder by the day as he frantically searches for some legendary zoid that may or may not exist, and the coalition are massing more and more elite zoid units outside the effective range of even our best supported long range air units, ready to mount a comprehensive strike into our territory, and furthermore, we are being sabotaged from within by soldiers we have had no previous reason to suspect of working either as a toady to Lord Storm or as agents for the coalition. In short, if this continues for much longer, not only are we doomed but the Free States as we know them are also doomed, and Lord Storm is too far blinded by his own delusions of grandeur that he refuses to admit to that which is blindingly obvious to all of us, that his excesses will be the downfall of us all!" and with that Colonel Casage slammed his gloved fist into the mahogany tabletop around which they were seated, emphasizing his point as his voice reached the climax of its roaring crescendo.
It was at this point that Roberta Hessling brought him from his ranting with the question, "and what courses of action do you propose to deal with this crisis?"
Zack Casage stared at her, watching as she, the highest ranking female officer in the entire Free States, and someone who theoretically outranked him, although she deferred to his raw talent if nothing else, so carefully brought silence to the room.
"What I propose is this," Zack explained, "that we all keep what troops we can at home in preparation for defence against an enemy counter attack, and that we arrange, where possible for their counter attack to be focussed against myself, given that I happen to possess the greatest arsenal of experimental weapons of us all. Moreover, for the moment I propose that we try to moderate Lord Storm's excesses, although if that gets us nowhere we have only one option open to us, Lord Storm must be deposed by whatever means prove necessary, even if this means a temporary alliance with the enemy."
Thaddeus Martin began speaking almost as Zack Casage stopped, saying, "surely in the event of a major enemy offensive you don't just expect me to pull back my troops and let them through, do you?"
"Of course not, Marshal," came the mildly sarcastic reply from colonel Casage, "what I am saying is that the enemy will probably outflank both your patrols and those of the navies to effect a landing, and that I should perhaps coordinate the repulsing of the enemy in such a battle."
And thus the meeting continued, with Colonel Casage dominating the proceedings and much being decided, including the fate of three of the Coalition intelligence and Spec Ops agents who had been captured and imprisoned two days before.
Meanwhile, in Coalition territory, Omicron Company were lined up outside the Whale King of the Research and Development team, ready to board it and be issued with various items of gadgetry that might prove useful on the front line, and also, perhaps, to see some of the new zoids that were being developed, they hoped. Then, as the mouth hatch of the Whale King lowered, and the patrol zoids that would serve to prevent spying around this Whale King were deployed, these taking the form of a dozen Helcats, they boarded the Whale King. As they entered, they came face to face with the head researcher of the unit, Doctor Steven Toros, who led them past the four zoids that were being worked on, a Shadow Fox, a Rev Raptor, and two Shield Ligers, to an office at the back of the zoid hangar, where they were issued with secure frequency portable comm units, anaesthetic dart guns (in case they needed to take prisoners), also the latest incarnation of military body armour, which had been carefully tailored to their body shapes, and finally, specialist energised swords, based on the technology of the Blade Liger and similar zoids, which were to be the standard melee weapon of all elite troops within the coalition.
The base around them was a hive of activity, with everyone seeming to be about some urgent last minute task, the same was true of any one of another dozen or so coalition bases, whose occupants were performing last minute readiness checks on their zoids, loading and packing such essentials as ammunition, food supplies and emergency flares, ready to be off on perhaps the most important mission they'd ever participate in, the campaign that stood a chance of winning the war quickly, Operation Fortress. Those who were not preparing for extended deployment were mostly the air units that would be running the hit and fade assaults to weaken the enemy defences enough for the vast number of transports that would be carrying the invasion force to get through.
The War was ready for what might be its final act, the ultimate long-range assault in history.