'Media vultures, I despise them more than anything, but they have their uses, as barbaric as they may be.'
Alexander Andreas Gustavus Di Britannia.
…..
"This is Helen Joan with Area 11 news! Our topic today, Alexander di Britannia and the war against the Federation!"
The news normally did not interest Naoto very much, with most of it being propagandized stories or basic bullshit but this topic drew his eye. The General had been a topic of the past dozen meetings in the cell, thanks to his position as commander of the Britannian pacific military. As such any information about him would be useful.
"I have been given the honor of being the first to inform the people of the latest events in Britannia's war against the Philippines." The news lady looked impossibly pleased with herself over this. He knew of her, a small time reporter recently promoted, must be her first big story. "We have received confirmation that the Chinese Federation has in fact intervened in the war!"
She took a moment too examine the papers in front of her, looking straight into the camera.
"Today at 04:32 Portland marine Knightmare frames under direct command of The Gilded Lion ambushed the Federations India fleet and captured the Fleet Carrier Luoyang!"
Nuato wasn't the only one who nearly spit his drink across the counter at that, but the shocks were not over yet.
"After the carrier had been secured the Lion had it loaded with sakuradite warheads and a brave crew of Britannian's sacrificed themselves to sneak it into the Federation fleet hub at Hainan, where it detonated."
'Fuck me, that's the federation done for...' He thought. 'Pearl-Harbor on steroids right there...'
"These brave Britannian's sacrificed themselves to destroy over seventy percent of the federation navy in one blow. We now move to the interview General Alexandre, the Gilded Lion himself gave just a few hours ago, after this we have an exclusive piece on the Princes early life so stick around!"
The visage of the general came forward. The man was tall, at least 1 meter and 90 centimeters, yet still young enough to grow even taller with short dark blond hair and purple eyes. He wore an impressive white suit, with red tie and golden cloak over it. He seemed to be a strong man, if young at only a year, maybe two older than his sister Kallen.
"People of the Empire! I am Alexandre Andreas Gustavus Di Britannia, commander of the Pacific. I speak to you here in the names of those who have died in sacrifice at Hainan and all battles fought in this war." The man took a second to stare into the camera. "I speak to you today because war has truly come! You may have heard of operations against China already, rumors of invasion and combat with Federation forces."
"It is true! The Chinese have intervened in our war with the Philippines, to enslave Britannia's newest area! Yesterday in the early hours of the dawn, fighters launched by Carriers commissioned from the former Imperial Japanese Navy engaged the Federations Shanghai battle group. The Shanghai battle group was engaged in a bombing campaign aimed towards the Okinawan islands, our brave fighter pilots attacked the battlegroup and destroyed the a Carrier and heavily damaged another."
The man articulated each word clearly, a look of focus upon his face. Nauto was reminded of the image of the emperor in his younger days, and of the men he had read off in the history books, grand personalities with skill to back up their claims.
"This afternoon a Vietnamese army reinforced the Philippine capital of Manila and there again they were defeated by my knight of honor Marius Ernst. This night we struck back! A force of Experimental Amphibious Knightmares under my direct command assaulted the Federations India fleet and captured the Carrier Luoyang!"
The Lion invoked his namesake with his stance, looking victorious even on the screen. The Golden hood of his cloak in his neck like a mane, a fist slammed into an open palm.
"As vengeance for those lost in the fight against the federation, fifty two men volunteered to guide the Luoyang laden down with sakuradite warheads into the federations Fleet hub at Hainan. There it detonated. Unfortunately, their escape was made impossible by a malfunction in their emergency boat. I will not let their deaths be the end of this!"
The man continued to pace, cloak swinging behind him as he did so, a beast in thoughts of war, thoughts of domination. Perhaps it was the poet in him causing these descriptions, he had not written one since he began training to pilot the Glasgow his group had acquired.
"Tomorrow I will take Taiwan! Tomorrow I will destroy the Federations foothold in the Pacific! I speak to all of you with one request! If you have family in China, tell them to raise the Britannian flag! For I am coming!"
The man splayed his arms wide, invoking a picture of a beast roaring.
"FOR WAR IS COMING!"
"With all its glory! And all its horror!"
The Lion dropped his voice to whisper.
"Prepare."
He had to give it to the Prince, he sure knew how to give a speech. Arrogant as hell and maybe idiotic but he knew how to give a speech.
…..
"I still don't like the idea of not deploying Knightmares for this."
"I don't either but we need to conserve forces, we both know they will be sitting ducks for the AT guns."
"Ugh, why do you always have to make sense?"
I ignored the question with a smile and focused on the sight before me, Taiwan, Formosa, the Gatehouse to China. Originally colonized by the Dutch, but later taken by the Chinese Taiwan was dominated by rocky beaches and mountains on its western side and hills and beaches of sand on its east.
The Chinese had built bunkers and defenses on the eastern beaches that made the defense line at Iceland look like a line in the sand. Whilst the mountains housed dug in airfields, hidden artillery batteries and missile silos. Its terrain was unfavorable to tanks and most types of Knightmares.
Infantry and aircraft that was what would conquer this island. I had a trick for this one, but it would come down to military force and good command above all. My five Fleet Carriers had approached the east coast, fighting through waves of Chinese fighters, they had most likely blown through a large chunk of their fighter reserves trying to force me back.
The Federation was overstretched however, Monica, Mac-Douglas and Lord Admiral Grey were tearing through Indonesia. The federation was losing thousands a day there with no possible victory in sight. Their navy was nonexistent, with only a few small task forces left, trying desperately to reform into something resembling a navy,
Taiwan would fall, I would make sure of it. My company had developed a toy that would have cracked this line easily but I had none of those here, just men and guns.
"Get me a line to Thatcher, I have a job for R6."
…..
"Glaz, take out the last ones."
Thatcher watched in dark fascination as Glaz's rifle spat out three suppressed shots in quick succession, causing three bodies to drop. The objective the Prince had set for them was near, the great vault doors to the Primary power plant were nearby. The Chinese had made the Power plants that supplied all power to the defenses damn near indestructible, having dug the them into the mountainside.
Yet they did not account for the chance of infiltration, not as much as they should have at least. For there was only a nondescript vault door guarded by two-dozen men. A pittance in the face of his squad of trained Spec-ops operators. Of course destroying one would do nothing much to the defenders, but that was why they had Dokebi with them, a hacker of her skill should easily be able to cause an overload.
"Thermite, your turn. Zofia, Finka, Tachanka, you will hold the door the rest of us will take control of the facility."
He received a chorus of rogers from his squad and Thermite placed his explosive charge on the door. They all took cover before the charge triggered and the vault door was blow clean away.
"Breach, breach, breach! Move it! Hit the switch for the defenses Dokebi."
….
"Powers out! This is your commander, I repeat Power is Out, move people!"
The fact that the Chinese relied so much on automated turrets for defense was their undoing. The generator was under our control, as such many of their defenses were off, and when the boots of my men hit the sand it was but an hour before their first line was useless.
50.000 dead on our side, 500.000 wounded, equal that on the Chinese side, all in the span of two hours.
This is why Knightmares are the future, so many lives could have been saved if we would have had only a single flight capable Knightmare, a ninth gen would have been able to win the battle outright. Yet this had to happen, the line had to break, and I watched all of it. It took 41 hours before the island fell and I finally got to sleep. A sleep broken by thoughts and pains, but a dreamless one. A single ambition reigned in my mind, the need for revenge, the need to make sure that it would not be in vain.
Tomorrow my war would begin.
….
"Drive core has completed spin up sequence!"
"Plasma reactor has reached full output!"
"Jets ready for activation!"
"Weapons fully charged!"
"Ships are in position My Lord!"
I found it strange how often I found myself in situations similar to this, those moments of information pouring in, all needing to be processed at once. It was a good thing that I could deal with it; many people would get overloaded with the continuous stream of information. But I could focus on the goal; the information just flowed in to reinforce my mental view of the situation.
"We have engaged Chinese fighters!"
"Taking fire from the beach!"
"Scouts spotted tank battalion on approach!"
"Bombers took out a Knightmare factory!"
The Chinese had done their best to reinforce the coasts, but even they could not defend it all. To the west of us lay the port of Hong-Kong, once a Britannian city, the federation reclaimed it during the sigil blood, the great Britannian succession crisis. We did not have to take the city itself however, just force its surrender by cutting it off.
This is what we had been preparing for, what I had been preparing for.
Perseus powered up around me silently, the great machine rising from its kneeling position to tower over all machines surrounding it, the Spartans where behind me, Hercules beside me, 41 machines total here.
We were on a Trireme pattern Assault landing craft, one of the designs my company managed to get accepted by the military. I had commissioned all of them, literally all of them since they had only recently come into construction. The Trireme was a massive amphibious landing craft, designed to carry five hundred infantry, two dozen tanks or in this case, an entire Knightmare battalion.
The thing was armored to withstand direct fire from a capital ship and had its own personnel AAA guns. Honestly I was quite proud of this design, without it our operation would be much more difficult.
We heard the vague sound of explosions in front of the transport. Good, Lord Admiral Grey must have started bombardment of the beaches. The plasma tipped shells and bombs that we had produced had just arrived and we were putting them to good use. I have to mention that my company is making a killing off of this war, first the Hyperion and the transports now these shells and bombs, yay money.
Okay, distracting myself was not working. Better to just focus. Leonidas was a great machine, do not get me wrong and he served me well. Yet sitting in the cockpit of Perseus it was like comparing a flintlock pistol to a Tank. Everything was sleek and had a purpose, and the field of vision! Oh the field of vision, 360 degree panels baby!
"One minute till we hit the beach Sir!"
I nodded Perseus's head in response and reached behind my back and retrieved one of my lances. Extending it to its full 7 meter length and causing the plasma to form with a hiss of burning air, its blue-green tips radiating heat and power. Around me the Spartans were powering up as well, they had seen some limited action in the Philippines with the Hercules but this was their first true campaign.
A shot rocked the transport, but we held our course. Nothing could stop us now. I briefly closed my eyes, when they reopened I was connected in ways that mortal minds would struggle to comprehend.
"Five seconds till landing!"
I sent the Perseus towards the doors as they lowered, clearing them with a jet-assisted jump before they were even open. I charged forward towards the Chinese forces blasting the song perfect for this over the loudspeakers I had insisted upon be installed.
Fast as the wind the invasion has begun! Shaking the ground with the force of thousand guns!
I strafed to the side and fired the shoulder cannons into an improvised bunker build out of a house. An explosion followed and I used the jets to make a clear jump over the collapsing building, flames licking at Perseus feet and rubble bouncing off of his armored form.
As I came down my lance pierced through a tank hiding on the other side of the building, causing it to explode as the plasma tip pierced into the ammunition storage. I ripped my weapon free and with a spin cut the turret off of a second tank. I checked my sensors and noticed a charging unit of Gun-ru's, meanwhile behind me the Spartans began to catch up.
The Knightmares collided quickly. Chinese Knightmares were built to counter infantry and light armor, with their arm mounted rifles and tank cannons, most effective at medium and just outside of melee range. Meanwhile my machines were close combat experts with some ability to fight at medium range.
They did not stand a chance at the range they engaged us in. My first swing cut a Gun-ru in half, the second removed a pair of legs, the follow up stab pierced straight through a Gun-ru's cockpit and into the drive core of the one behind it. The explosion loud against the backdrop of war I simply moved on to the next, there was no reason to delay.
I fired my shoulder guns to destroy another 2 of the Chinese Knightmares, Marius entering my vision as he battered in on another Gun-ru with his electrified bludgeons. A Spartan equipped with a rifle strafed a Gun-ru to my left.
I used my jets to spin in a massive round swing, cutting the heads off of three Gun-ru's and landed to thrust forward piercing the last Gun-ru through the cockpit. I used Perseus enhanced strength to lift the machine above my machines head with the right hand, drew my sword and cut the head of the machine clean off before dropping it to the floor. We moved on to the next hostiles.
We began to take fire from not too far away, tanks in the forest. Their shots were accurate but our sensors and experience as pilots meant that we avoided all but three shots, the shots that hit caused us to lose two Knightmares but no pilots.
We came across the tank battalion quickly; it wasn't much of a fight. The tanks were too slow to keep up with us, and the infantry with them ran when they saw us approached. When we left there was nothing left but burning wrecks.
More Knightmares were arriving from the beach and our spearhead grew, we swept into a town to find it guarded by another unit of Gun-ru's. Three shots from my shoulder cannons wiped the ones facing me. Then I unfolded the rifle from Perseus's back, its massive barrel extending above my head glowing with energy.
I fired a singular shot and it flew across the land at the speed of sound. Its green shape hit the biggest target around, an Cao Cao class Chinese land ship, the smallest but fastest of its kind, straight on the barrel of its giant gun. And the thing sagged in on itself as the plasma melted through the center of the deathtrap, hitting its ammunition storage.
I turned away as the thing exploded with the sound of a tsunami hitting the shore and charged towards the next group of hostiles.
GHOST DIVISION!
….
"Today in the news, The Gilded Lion advances a stunning 300 kilometers in the span of two days!" Lelouch looked at the news with growing ire, grasping the glass brush in his hand a little harder than necessary. His brothers quick rise to popularity and rise within the ranks was not unexpected, Alexander was a masterful commander and manipulator.
He gently pulled the brush through Nunnally's hair as he watched, well listened too, the news; it was their peaceful moment of the day. And Nunna was worried about her brother fighting the war, he was not able to deny her this even though hearing of Alexander grated on his nerves almost as much as hearing of Schneizel did.
"The Lion's forces landed just two days ago on the coast just off of Hong-Kong and proceeded to win a battle against the Chinese forces defending the area. Since then the 1st pacific army has continued its unstoppable push though China at a steady pace."
The war was over from the moment Alexander took out the Shanghai battle group, he had played them like a fiddle from that point onwards. He had predicted their every move far in advance and played it for all that it was worth. The only thing with even a chance of saving the federation was a commander on par with him.
His capture of the Luoyang and detonating it in Hainan? Would have worked just as well if the ship were destroyed, the Chinese were not exactly smart and a bomb of lesser size could have easily been smuggled in. The siege of Taiwan? The island was only maintainable with a navy. Alexander would not have attacked it if his earlier plans had failed; Lelouch expected that Alexander would have shifted his focus south towards Indonesia and Malaysia.
And with this landing? The war would be over in no more than two months, three at most. At the beginning it looked like the Euros were bound to interfere, but after Hainan they pulled most of their forces back from strike positions. With the Chinese fleet combat ineffective Britannia could bring its entire fleet to bear on them.
He reconsidered his previous thoughts, as much as such a crushing blow would do it was highly unlikely that the Atlantic fleet would be sent to China. It would be like sacrificing the Queen to take a Peon, it would not happen unless the king was in danger.
He put the brush down and began to put in a simple braid, calming his thoughts. His time for revenge would come, whether in a year a decade or longer, but Nunna would need to be safe before all.
…
The village looked the same as the last thirty they had overrun on their way along the coast. We had yet to lose momentum, it was a good thing too, our speed was what was keeping our aggression up. We had taken out no less than 3 Federation armies in the past week, every day was a different battle.
We are on approach to Shanghai, not more than two day away. Our infantry had been having trouble keeping up with us, we could not simply leave the territory we passed through without establishing a garrison after all. Yet I want to hurry as much as possible, every day they have to reinforce and fortify Shanghai is a day to many.
City fighting was hell already, and Shanghai was unlikely to surrender like Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong did. It was a fortress already and had been reinforced with both fresh troops and whatever forces could retreat from my advance.
It was lucky I had requisitioned every single Knightmare I could get my hands on, because despite of the efficiency of my spearhead casualties among the frames were common. So far we had lost at least 500 Sutherlands, 50 Gloucester's and 7 of my Spartans.
The last loss was the hardest to compensate for, I only had a few Spartans at the start of the war. We were building a Spartan every week now, the production drive for the start of the war had to be pushed to a lower priority because of the need for replacement parts and the prioritization of different projects.
We had found several things that needed upgrading on the Spartan models, and it was likely that a MK III was needed, so shifting production towards spares was not as bad as one might think. And I wanted to work on a series of special projects anyway, as well as acquiring some extra research staff. A certain pudding earl or Indian professor for instance were high on the list.
But back to the point, Shanghai city. From what we know about it since the war has started has been turned into a fortress of great size. The Chinese had converted buildings on the outskirts into firing bases and bunkers. Highways had been converted into airfields, civilian factories were repurposed to produce spare parts, the 2 out of commission carriers of the Federation were set up as airfield command centers.
Its shore side defenses were nothing to sneeze at either, bunkers batteries and the remnants of the federation fleet. The biggest threat and the reason we had not shelled from the city from the sea however was the prototype Railgun that sat on its own artificial island at the edge of the harbor. The thing was impressive, from the test the federation had done with it; it was more than able to destroy a ship in a single shot.
Nothing short of a siege would break it, so a siege I would give them. I turned my eyes to the weapons being brought in by trucks behind us. First used during the sigil of blood, the Volcano siege guns are mammoth weapons that put big gun battleships of the time to shame.
Despite that I was unsure of them, the massive weapons were said to be able to crack through even the toughest barrier. But they were not known for their accuracy, I would have preferred to deploy strike craft but any aircraft in the air were likely to be shredded by AA fire from either side.
As it was I have three objectives for this battle, one: the capture of the City of Shanghai, two: the capture of the Rail-gun, three: the destruction of the Chinese army.
'It sounds so simple put like that.' I thought gravely, 'But many lives will be lost for this, so many sacrificed for something like this.'
…..
'Why do I play music when in battle? Several reasons general, physiology is one of them of course, but the primary reason? It's quite simple really, I like it.'
Alexander Andreas Gustavus Di Britannia.
All credits for lyrics go to Sabaton and their amazing songs, please check them out if you are into history, metal or both!