Part I: Weapons and Wits
In the early morning hours of November 16, 2007, the Tamaranian royal council met for what was to be the final time. All over the planet militias were gathering, supplies being stockpiled, windows and doors boarded up. The Tamaranian council was about to make a final change to the war plan, one which most analysts now believe turned out to be the key to the ultimate victory of the Tamaranian Empire.
That morning, the Tamaranian Navy, containing nearly all the warships under Tamaranian control, departed the star system. With most of the Gordanian ships still not having arrived, the Tamaranian fleet evaded any engagement with the enemy before abandoning their home planet.
Two weeks later, when the massive Gordanian formations finally entered the Tamaran system, the planet was at the mercy of the invaders. Finding only token resistance, the Gordanian ships descended on Tamaran, putting down the Coalition army of some 980,000 troops on the main oil fields of the western continent. By nightfall on December 1, the invaders controlled nearly two-thirds of the petroleum and half of the natural gas on Tamaran, killed 68 Tamaranian troops, and captured another 2,000.
The Coalition forces had walked right into a trap, which the Tamaranian officials agree was the brainchild of Prince Richard Grayson, known to most of the outside world as Nightwing. On the night of December 1, all 6,000 oil wells and many of the pipelines in the occupied territory simultaneously exploded, interrupting the Gordanian fortification construction work and destroying almost 10 percent of the Coalition army's heavy tanks and vehicles, and killing or wounding about 2,000 Coalition troops. Difficult-to-extinguish fires ignited in many of the wells; all the Tamaranian oil-handling facilities were damaged beyond repair. The invaders would have to rebuild the facilities themselves.
The Battle of Galarak
On December 3, the forces of the Coalition and Tamaran clashed in the first large-scale battle when 300,000 Tamaranian militia and Imperial troops commanded by Crown Princess Koriand'r attacked a column of Dreknathian troops moving towards the nearby city of Galarak. The Coalition column consisted of 30,000 Gordanians, 15,000 Sladebots, and 70,000 Dreknathians under the Dreknathian General Qrqxcran.
From his floating platform in the rear Qrqxcran had directed his troops along the main highway. Always cautious and wary of ambushes or traps in the tall grass, he had placed his 2,000 Gordanian heavy tanks in lines on the flanks of his formation and ordered them to face their turrets to the sides as they drove forward. The tanks were screened by Sladebots which he ordered to march by stepping sideways. Qrqxcran evidently expected to be suddenly attacked from a flank by Princess Koriand'r's highly mobile, flight-capable Tamaranians.
For two days, Qrqxcran's army inched cautiously eastward towards Galarak. Qrqxcran was forced to stop temporarily to build pontoon bridges across the Xisha River, for which the Tamaranians had never needed to build a bridge due to their ability to fly. At this point, Koriand'r, having observed Qrqxcran's precautions against flank ambushes, decided instead to launch a combined-arms assault on the Dreknathian center. On the morning of December 3, four thousand Tamaranian hovertanks and 250,000 militia flew across the river, destroying the partially-built bridges, and attacked all along the front of the Dreknathian army.
In the air, Gordanian starfighters soon descended from the orbiting Gordanian battleships to support Qrqxcran's troops on the ground. About 700 starfighters soon found themselves in "dogfights" with thousands of flying Tamaranian soldiers. The Tamaranians flew randomly around, evading the Gordanian missiles and using their assault rifles to shoot ineffectually at the enemy starfighters. They soon learned to target the cockpits and engines, and succeeded in shooting down about 100 starfighters over the course of the battle.
Nearer the ground, the Dreknathian insect infantry in the center, no match for Tamaranians armed with laser swords, axes, and rifles, were rapidly pushed back. However, reinforcements were forthcoming as the next Coalition column of 10,000 Gordanians and 15,000 Americans rushed to aid Qrqxcran's army. Meanwhile, the Gordanian heavy tanks, quickly redeployed to the center, proved to be better armored and more resistant to damage than the flying Tamaranian hovertanks. Almost all 4,000 Tamaranian tanks were disabled, while 1,000 Gordanian tanks remained functional after the battle.
At this point, the Coalition reinforcements of Gordanian and American troops began to join the battle. The Tamaranian militias, sensing that the battle was not in their favor, exercised their right to life and fled the field, leaving behind their princess with about 30,000 of her Imperial troops. As the elite military unit of Tamaran, these troops would not run from battle even when the odds were heavily against them. However, Koriand'r recognized that the battle had already been lost and ordered her remaining force to withdraw.
In the Battle of Galarak, both sides learned valuable lessons. The defeated Tamaranians realized that the Gordanian armored forces held unquestionable superiority in tank engagements. While Tamaranian armor-piercing shells were on a par with Gordanian tank weapons, the Tamaranian tanks themselves were simply not well armored enough to stand in a fight with Gordanian armor. For their part, the Coalition learned that Tamaranian troops were easily routed in a direct confrontation, but that all Tamaranian forces, from infantry to light armor to heavy tanks, held decisive advantages in mobility.
The Qak-Zandat Massacre
Even though the Tamaranians were disappointed over the loss at Galarak, they were consoled by the news of a stunning victory elsewhere—achieved not by force of arms, but by wits and cunning. During the same time as the Battle of Galarak, another Coalition army—this one comprised of 150,000 Dreknathians, 10,000 Americans, and 30,000 Sladebots under the Gordanian general Xa'wilik, advanced on the other major city near the oilfields, Qak-Zandat to the southeast. Xa'wilik was a brash and bold commander, unlike Qrqxcran, and he was fortunate not to have been subjected to an ambush, as he marched his troops rapidly forward, leaving his flanks nearly undefended. Reaching Qak-Zandat at noon on December 2 and finding only 3,500 Tamaranian militia defending the city, Xa'wilik ordered a direct frontal assault with the Dreknathian insect troops. The overwhelming numbers of the Dreknathians ensured victory and routed the Tamaranians, although the Dreknathian insects suffered 1,400 casualties to the Tamaranians' 27. The militia, along with the 2.1 million residents of Qak-Zandat, fled the city in panic.
Xa'wilik's army speedily occupied Qak-Zandat. Qak-Zandat was a large, beautifully constructed city, and Xa'wilik was fascinated by the Tamaranian architecture. The Coalition army ransacked the city, feasting on captured Tamaranian food and drink (including many unfinished lunches left on dining room tables) and taking any valuables left in the homes.
It was only the next day that Xa'wilik realized that he had blundered into another trap. All the splendid feasts, seemingly abandoned in haste, had actually been laced with powerful insecticides. Nearly 120,000 Dreknathian insects and 2,000 American GIs died of the poisoning, and nearly all the rest were badly sickened. Only the 30,000 Sladebots were able to fight when 20,500 Tamaranian militia led by Prince Richard, including the 3,500 that had been driven from the city the previous day, returned to retake the city. In two days of vicious house-to-house fighting, the Tamaranians, who had the advantage of knowing the city's layout, destroyed all 30,000 Sladebots at the cost of 6,000 killed and 9,000 wounded. During the battle, they also killed any ailing Coalition troops they found, including General Xa'wilik. The "Battle of Qak-Zandat" was properly described as a massacre, as an entire field army of almost 200,000 invaders was completely annihilated, with not a single survivor, by a Tamaranian force only one tenth of its size.
The Coalition forces immediately claimed that the Qak-Zandat massacre was a war crime, as the Tamaranians had refused to take prisoners or give medical treatment to the poisoned Coalition troops. Meanwhile, General Qrqxcran, who had won a hard-fought victory at Galarak the same day, began to seriously doubt the wisdom of this war. He sent a report to the Gordanian High Command on December 6, saying that he foresaw "no possibility of victory in this war except at a cost of blood and treasure that would exceed the combined value of all resources on the planet" and urging a withdrawal. However, the Gordanian High Command refused to quit:
"Already too much blood has been shed to make an honorable peace. We will only be fooled by the Tamaranians once; we can learn and adapt to their tricks. Furthermore, even if there were to be an unlimited number of such maneuvers, the honor of the Empire is now at stake, and we are compelled by it to succeed in our quest to subjugate Tamaran, whatever the cost. We must make clear that such resistance to the Gordanian Empire will not be tolerated nor successful."