du Jonchère II
As we sit down for a while, du Jonchère glances at the famous photo hung up on the opposite wall, of people in Times Square looking at the 'Zipper' news ticker as Operation Earth is revealed to be underway.
Q: Were you still in New York City at the time?
A: Yes. I couldn't return home, after all; air travel was strictly forbidden during that time. Between the Race's missiles and the fithp's lasers, no one could safely fly to any country. All I could do was call my family and hope they stayed safe.
You can imagine my terror on Footfall, then. My family was in Paris at the time, which meant they survived the waves, but I didn't know they were safe for weeks. Can you imagine that degree of stress, not knowing if your mother was alive, or one of millions of bodies soaking in the flooded streets?
She pauses, glancing down at her hands.
Life in New York was strange during that time. In all of those movies you watch growing up, the ones where aliens invade, there's always something involving New York. Money shots, I think is the American term. Maybe some flying saucers blow up the Empire State Building, or decapitate the Statue of Liberty. Legions of little green men walking down Wall Street, something along those lines.
And yet, when the real invasion came, New York was untouched. The only way to know a war was going on was to read the news, or notice how everything was being rationed. No cars in the street during that time, and no flashy advertisements in Times Square. The City that Never Sleeps was almost deathly silent. Most of the people actually in the city were seniors, minors, or single parents who couldn't leave their children to join the war effort.
Q: Where were you when Operation Earth began?
A: Walking through Times Square, actually. Imagine the coincidence! If I'd decided to go get my rations just a few minutes earlier or later, I would not have been treated to such a stunning, historic, sight.
It first started when my phone rang, and I pulled it out to see all my working news apps start to flare up. Allied counterattack into Southern France or Missiles Launched at Iran as Russian Forces Attack. Alert after alert after alert.
I looked up to see that everyone else was doing the same. Thousands of people, all stopping at once to look down at their phones. Gasping across the square, then people were looking around at each other, as if wondering if they were all reading the same things.
Then the ticker started saying the same things, and that was as though a dam had broke. We all began trying to call our family members, or just talking to each other in hushed tones, wondering what this meant for us.
I imagine that's how the people in New York must have felt almost a hundred years ago, on D-Day. Suddenly realizing that the beginning of the end had come, good or bad.
-/-\-
Kim II
Kim refills my soju glass, then motions for me to continue.
Q: When Operation Earth began, what was the South Korean front like?
A: We waited a bit later than the Chinese to start, so we could better cross the DMZ. Not long; only ten minutes or so, so the Lizards would start focusing away from us.
When we actually began, however... the first few minutes were probably some of the loudest in my life. There I was, crouching in an APC, watching through my feed as the artillery began. And I mean a lot of artillery. There were probably a few thousand MLRS along the DMZ, and all of them lit up at once, striking the old North Korean positions.
It was the kind of rumbling you could feel in your bones and teeth. Thumpthumpthump, all at once, probably a hundred thousand rockets on the opening salvo.. It was nighttime for us when the attack began, but the glare of the rockets was enough to make the countryside visible. There was also the Chinese ships and our ships, too. Those were hitting coastal target to throw the Lizards off. I think there was also a few landings on the coast. I don't know; if there were, I wasn't there.
The elephant lasers managed to shoot down almost all the missiles, if the reports we got meant anything, but those rockets and shells definitely hit. I could hear the rumbling as they started hitting the bunkers and armor the recon and defectors told us about.
Anyway, as soon as the first salvo ended, that's when our planes went in, to try and mitigate the Lizard planes. I never saw anything like it; they were flying dangerously low to the ground, to try and avoid the lasers. Ever had a big fighter jet roar only a few hundred feet over your head? It's a good thing we had earplugs.
The second salvo started after that, but this time it was all missiles. We'd already flattened the first few kilometers of the front line, and now they were aiming at the further outposts, the ones that had the big fithp lasers.
Q: But wouldn't the lasers just shoot them down?
A: Apparently, that was the plan. Maybe the lasers could shoot down all of our planes, and all of our missiles, but not both at the same time. Like wheeling out those old automatic tennis-ball shooters, pointing at a pro, and cranking the speed dial up to maximum, and then you start throwing some from another angle. At least, I think that's a good analogy. I've never played tennis.
It worked. We only lost a few hundred planes by the time we were told to roll out. That was about half an hour after the rockets started blasting.
I was part of the first wave. We didn't go all at once, in case we got hit by the crowbars from orbit, which meant we were all wondering if we were going to be the unlucky ones. We rolled out quickly; this was like one of those more modern strategies. I think the Germans came up with the name, but it's all weird. We called it jeongyeogjeon. No trenches, no stopping. We just charged in as a mechanized force.
I must say, it was a, er, peculiar sensation, crossing over the border like that. Like when you swear for the first time, or eat something your parents never let you. There was this place so close, yet so far, like a forbidden forest or something, and now I was charging over the line in an APC. We passed by shattered bunkers and burning tanks as we started moving further in, where the bulk of the Lizard forces were.
Q: Wasn't that risky, considering how many mines and traps the Northerners made?
A: Yes. Why do you think we have more leg amputees than the other countries? I mean, we avoided the bigger minefields, thanks to the defectors, and we have detection techniques, but sometimes you just have bad luck. Thankfully, I have good luck, and I still have toes to wiggle.
A (Hideko): Giggling. 私はそれのために幸運だ。
Q: What did she say? My translator's a bit old.
A: Nothing! Anyway, you were saying?
Q: Well, I imagine the entrenchment of the Race thanks to the Northern equipment was still difficult to overcome.
A: Thankfully, the Lizards didn't use everything the Northerners had. Some of it was destroyed by loyalists, and I guess they just weren't willing to use the tunnels during the worst rain we'd had in decades.
It still meant there were plenty of small pillboxes all over the countryside we had to handle. I remember when I had to get sent to clear out a bunker our air support had missed. We literally smashed down the doors with a ram we had in the front of our APC, then I hopped out and went in. The defectors were helpful; they knew where the gunfire would be coming from. I almost lost my nose there; heard the round zoom past. It balanced out when I took off the top of the Hallessi's head.
Q: Were there any surrenders during that time?
A: Not yet. At least, not from the Lizards. We had a lot of human auxiliaries surrendering to us. I was surprised that there were almost no civilians among them, actually.
Of course, that was over the course of the first hour of the fighting. I was at Koksan by then, and that's when we'd start encountering the civilians who'd been living under Lizard rule for the past month.
-/-\-
Almeida II
After leaving the Mosteiro de Alcobaça, Almeida and I sit down at a nearby restaurant. Almeida tears into some bacalhau and some kind of yellow rice, and motions for me to try the customary bread and goat cheese the waiter has brought out.
Q: Where were you when Operation Earth began?
A: I was still here, in Alcobaça, and holding the line. We had to fight off three more counterattacks during this time, but none of them had the same kind of momentum as that first one. Of course, we were also running lower and lower on men and equipment with each attack as well. We looted our dead for ammunition, and occasionally even took weapons from the dead Cameleões. They were terrible guns, however; only the smallest of us could actually get our fingers through the trigger guard.
When I heard that we were to actually go on the offensive, I thought it was ludicrous. But as the reports of how Coimbra had fallen, and how almost all of Espanha was under their control, I started to realize that maybe ludicrous was the way to go. It was better than just waiting in the mud.
So, on that opening day, I was in a jeep, waiting for the go ahead signal. I was informed that we were to wait for allied aircraft to clear the skies, first, before we began the ground attack. It was about ten minutes after the official 'start' that we heard reports of Arab aircraft flying over Espanha, and I realized that was our cue.
Q: What kind of combat did you see?
A: Thankfully, it seemed that the Cameleões were caught off guard by our surprise offensive. Our own aircraft managed to destroy the nearest base, and we started driving towards the next one, in Torres Novas. We had to maneuver around a force sent from the base, and there were a few short skirmishes before we managed to lure them over a bridge we blew. And all of that was in the first hour.
Q: I take it that things became more heated in the second hour?
A: I feel like if you ask anyone who fought in that offensive that question, the answer will always be yes.
-/-\-
Gorrpet I
A rather short Race male by their standard, Gorrpet is one of many patrons at Dkolo's parlor. He comes over to talk, upon hearing my questioning of Dkolo.
A: You talkin' about Operation Kiss our Stumps Goodbye?
Q: Do you mean Operation Earth?
A: Yeah. Stupid name, but whatever. I was on the ground when that shitfit began.
Q: Oh? Where were you?
A: Khanpur. Er, you know, Pākistān. Crappy place. Nice weather, but everything else was terrible. Guerilla warfare up the cloaca, so bad that we probably only held three quarters of the city at any given time. Only started getting better when the elephants came along, and suddenly everyone got all scared of being shelled from orbit. Still didn't keep the occasional guy from spatterin' himself all over the base's fence in some half-assed attempt at martyrdom. Not to mention the still lingering army forces in the nearby city.
He pours some ginger over his wrist, then laps it up.
That's is how I befriended this little beauty. Really takes the edge off. Sadly, even the spice couldn't keep me from feelin' panic when your stupid Operation began.
Q: What was that like for you?
A: I was on patrol when suddenly all these panicked reports started comin' from the border with Indiya. Big Ugly armor suddenly stormin' positions here, Big Ugly killercraft launching attacks on our bases... orbital cameras confirmed that there must've been millions of 'em, coming into our turf. One huge offensive, like that Deutsch blitzkrieg I read about.
I was ordered to return to base, and get ready. We had a single laser, the kind that could take down killercraft, and I started gettin' hopeful. Intelligence from up high started sayin' that the Big Uglies headin' our way had less armor than expected. Intelligence on the ground, though...
Q: Why? What was wrong?
A: The same thing kept on gettin' reported across the front by vets on the ground, or at least males who had friends that'd fought in Hyderabad.
"The Gurkhas are coming".
At once, a few males in the parlor hiss in unison. "Forsaken Gurkhas!" one says.
Q: The Gurkhas? I didn't know you feared them that badly.
A: Oh, why wouldn't we fear them, huh? Sneaky Big Uglies who seemed to practically pop out of the shadows when you least expect it, kill everyone, then leave their heads for us to find later? They were some of the only groups of Tosevites we knew by name, or could recognize on sight, thanks to those huge knives of theirs.
He laps up some more ginger.
The vets in Indiya started spreadin' rumors about 'em. Tall tales, as you Big Uglies say. Some said that the Gurkhas were some sort of special breed of Tosevite, meant only to kill, who had horns on their heads and curved claws. I heard stories about Gurkhas eatin' their prisoners, or rippin' out males' hearts to offer to some dark god. Some said that they could turn invisible.
I didn't believe half of them, but we all still had a fear of them, because of the stories we knew were true. Photos of Race heads on pikes, or with their bellies slashed open by those knives, or... or the ones who had their cloacas taken as trophies.
So yeah, when I realized the Gurkhas were comin', you bet I was scared. We of the Race never had a word for demon, since we only believe in the Spirits of the Emperor, but this world gave us one, and its name is gurkha.
-/-\-
Thapa II
Thapa looks over some photos taken from the combat in India and Pakistan, and shakes his head sadly.
Q: I take it you don't approve of your post-war reputation amongst the Race?
A: No. It is a most unfortunate legacy that we now bear, not only amongst the Race, but amongst the men who have hearts bigger than their neighbors'. Demons, we are called, or war criminals. Savages. Brutes.
He looks at me.
Do I look like a monster, sir? A brute? No, do not answer. It is rude to demand that you answer such a question. Please, continue.
Q: Where were you on Operation Earth?
A: I was deployed to Pakistan, as was every other Gorkha. While some were sent to help liberate cities, or disrupt operations in the mountains, my fellows in the Eight were sent to take down the laser in Khanpur. We were helped by a contingent of regulars in the Indian Army, as well as the few surviving members of the Pakistani Army, who had been holed up in pockets across the nation, such as Rahim Yar-Khan.
To think, that a meager handful of months of invasion was enough to accomplish more than decades of diplomacy, between these two nations.
The Race was unprepared for the attack. On the large scale, the Chinese and Russians were invading from the North, while we took the East. On the small scale for Khanpur, there was the sudden attack from Rahim Yark-Khan, just as we attacked from the other side of the city. This was a most dangerous sort of urban combat, for we could not pause, lest we endanger our part of the offensive. But we are Gorkhas, and we continued to prevail.
Q: Did you receive surrenders during that time?
A: Many. In fact, the laser was surrendered to us within the hour, once they realized us Gorkhas were in the city. And yet, there were many more deaths, deaths that could have been avoided. Many times, I found Race who had taken their own lives, rather than risk capture by us. Many surrendered to the Pakistanis in the vain hope that they would be better treated, only to face brutalities from vengeful men.
The ones who surrendered to us were the ones who could not escape to the Pakistanis, or were too afraid to commit suicide. Some wailed to themselves, while others calmly asked us to kill them quickly.
Their fear made me feel almost ashamed of myself.
Q: Why? Aren't the Gorkhas known for inspiring fear in their enemies?
A: Yes. But I would argue that our intimidation is a tool. In war, fear is one of the most important tools. Fear pulls down the morale of the enemy. It breaks their ranks, and encourages surrenders. It is as Sun Tzu said: to win without fighting is the epitome of skill.
However, that is it. Fear was a tool to win against the invaders, nothing more and nothing less. I would not consider myself a brute. I don't rip out the hearts of my neighbors, or terrorize my young son. Just as I left my armor behind when I retired, so did I leave behind the idea of inspiring fear. We did what we did to scare the enemy, and nothing more.
But seeing the extent of the fear in their ranks made me worry. I began to wonder... I still wonder, if we crossed the line, and began to commit brutality for brutality's sake.
-/-\-
Lee I
Arnold Lee can usually be found nowadays in Boston, where he lives with his wife. My impression of him, as he invites me to walk the Freedom Trail with him for his daily exercise, is of a small and hunched over man, with an archaic prosthetic leg. Nevertheless, he is quite the animated figure, despite his age.
Q: Thank you very much for agreeing to this interview, Mr. Lee.
A: Ah, it's no problem. I ain't getting younger, and I think it's important for the next generations to know every grain of shit we sifted through, so they don't have to go swimming in it like we did.
Q: Then let's get started. You were a seaman aboard the Missouri, weren't you?
A: Yeah, that's me. 'Cept I was actually a Chief Petty Officer. The Navy's a bit of a family history, and Mighty Mo' was basically an honorary uncle. My pops served on the Missouri, and I served on it in the Gulf War. When it got recommissioned for the Big One, I reenlisted as part of the Old Blood program. I helped train the rookies to get familiar with her, since she's a different kind of lady from modern ships.
Q: How so?
A: Destroyers and carriers have paper armor, for startes. I think the Arleigh-Burkes had armor of what, an inch? Half? Armor was useless for the kind of combat they were designed for. The Iowas, like Mo', they had armor more than a foot thick in places. And the same thing went for the guns. The destroyers had one five inch gun that could shoot a seventy pound shell at a range of thirteen miles. The battleships' guns were sixteen inches wide and could fire shells weighing more than a ton at a range of twenty six miles. And there were nine of 'em.
Course, when war turned to electronics and stealth and power projection, the battleships went out of fashion, since they weren't really good for any of that shit. But when those alien sumbitches started a comin', we realized we might need 'em. For all we knew, they coulda had the ultimate jamming tech, or armor too thick for our destroyers and planes to really crack.
Of course, it ain't easy to go back to old tech like that, so that was why they wanted me. They polished her up a little with some fancy stuff, but they still had us using the old-school stuff. Hard work, especially when you're already an old man. But she was in tip top shape by the time of Operation Earth, and I'm damn proud of that.
Q: Did you participate directly in the Operation?
A: Course I did; ya really think they'd leave that to the fresh meat? I was aboard as we sailed into the Gulf. Ugh, I still remember the smell during that time. When that big rock hit the water, the shock killed a lot of fish. Not all of 'em, thankfully, but a lot, and those bodies floated up, and started stinkin' up the place. Smelled like literal shit. The whole time I was on the verge of blowin' chunks from the stink. Didn't help that there was still a heavy fog over everything, thanks to the rock messing up the weather. Felt like I was in the middle of the swamp, even when I was miles from the shore.
And the worst thing was, we wanted the fog to still be there. To make their lasers work harder to fry our planes, and to make it harder to target us with their telephone poles. We already knew where the targets where, which meant that we could get by by usin' pen and paper to aim the guns.
Q: What targets were you hitting, anyway? It couldn't be too far from the water, could it?
A: Mo' and her boys were headin' to Houston, while her sisters went to hit Pensacola and Tampa. A big chunk of the fleet was there, since Houston was one of the bigger landing sites. We were talking half a million Lizards, with thousands of planes. Worst of all, they had three of the big lasers there. The ones that could fry fifty planes in a minute if ya didn't put on ablative paint or armor. The Mexicans and Brazilians were comin' up from the south for the offensive, and those lasers would've swatted 'em out of the sky like gnats.
We had three CBGs with us, but hitting those lasers would've been too high risk, when you have hostile planes and lasers in the air. And missiles woulda been useless. That's why we were brought in, along with the Massachusetts, which was an earlier model of battleship. We moved in as close to shore as we could, along with the Constitution.
Q: The Constitution? As in, the Revolutionary War frigate?
A: She was meant to be a ceremonial thing. Something about how the oldest active warship should get the first shot in on the most important battle in American history, or somethin' like that. Well, she did her old broadside, then turned around and got out before we even knew if it actually hit anything. Then the real shelling started.
Q: How successful was the opening salvo?
A: We managed to take down two of the lasers on the first salvo, and as soon as the reports came in, the carriers launched their aircraft. Light ground attack stuff; the real bombers and attack craft were heading south to hit Little Rock and Montgomery. Still, the Lizards were caught completely off guard; I guess they still hadn't really gotten used to naval wars. I hear their planet doesn't have oceans. Just shitty salt seas and rivers. Makes sense, considering how, uh, out of their depth they were.
They scrambled counterattacks quick enough. Before we knew it, a bunch of killercraft were bearing down on us, just as the rest of the fleet started their attack. We had modern CIWS put in, and that stuff managed to shoot down a few, but we still got hit a bunch. Didn't really do anythin', though.
Q: It didn't?
A: I tell ya, this was the perfect enemy to bring Mighty Mo' back for. Everything that made it outdated, like good anti-ship missiles and torpedoes and all that modern jazz... the Lizards didn't have it. Their missiles were meant ta hit other missiles, or planes or tanks. They mighta well been spitballs for all the good they did against our armor. I can't imagine how those poor geckos must've been feelin', seeing the Missouri take a poundin' that would've taken out half an air force and still keep goin'.
Our next salvo hit the last laser, and the killercraft started gettin' sent off by our own planes. Now, it was fair game. We hit armor columns, bases... then the lasers started comin' down. Not the kind meant ta hit planes, either; these were the targeting kind.
Q: They were using orbital bombardment on you?
A: Well, nothin' else was working, so I guess they decided to bring out the big guns. Thankfully, it was still rough, thanks to the fog and rain; the first few missed. The carriers started retreating, and there were worries that the Lizards might try a nuclear retaliation, since we knew they probably had a few on 'em.
Gotta remember. Michael and Uriel hadn't launched yet, since we needed to divert enough attention in the first hour. Between the bombardment and possible nuclear weapons bearing down, we weren't in the best spot. We knew that, when we signed up. We still agreed to it, since we knew that it'd be worth it in the long run.
But that didn't we mean we had to fall back like that.
Q: And that's when the Missouri charged?
Lee sucks in a deep breath.
A: I tell ya, it was... it was somethin'. The Massachusetts continued ta shell the positions, but we charged away from the fleet, and just started firin' as many shells as we could. The loaders and barrels were facin' stress failure, but we kept on pushin', since we knew we weren't gonna last long enough ta worry about that. We had hundreds of shells, and we were gonna use 'em.
All that time, we were still gettin' hit by the occasional killercraft, or missile launched from the ground. Then the targetin' lasers came back, but they were focused on us. We deployed some old-fashioned smokescreens, and the captain ordered us to barn door.
Q: Barn door?
A: Put the engines in full reverse, and the twin rudders are pulled to centerline. Stopped her within her own length. Also slammed every loose item into the bulkhead, includin' me. Broke my nose pretty good.
It worked. The telephone pole that got a direct hit hit us in the bow, which had compartments to stop floodin'. We lost a lot of maneuverability, but we were still capable of fightin'. Mighty Mo' kept on shellin', and kept on goin'. One of the guns broke down, but that didn't stop the other eight from still givin' the Lizards hell.
Then we got hit with another pole, and that's when we started falterin'. We couldn't take on much more water, which meant that the last hit was probably gonna be it. That's when we found that a Race starship had entered our range, and that a digit ship was comin' down from Little Rock to take us out.
The rest of the fleet pulled away, and I was ordered ta abandon ship. Which meant jump. We started goin' overboard and inflatin' our rafts, while a few brave bastards stayed behind. I got pulled into a raft when I went over, and everyone started paddlin' like madmen. I turned around ta see her still shootin' away, tearing that starship apart like it was made o' paper. Then the digit ship swooped in, prolly expectin' to take her down, and got the same treatment.
Unfortunately, it still did enough. I could see the flames eatin' away at the Missouri, and it was almost like seeing a family member die. And yet, yet... she was still goin', all the way into Galveston bay, with her momentum gettin' her far enough when the water got too shallow. And then...
Lee pauses, and wipes his eyes.
I saw Mighty Mo' go. I'm not sure if it was an accident that made her magazines go off, or if somebody deliberately set it off, but off it went. There were still plenty of unexploded shells left; must've been equivalent to a tactical nuclear weapon. I saw it flatten what remained of the Race bases in the city, and knock the remains of the starship over. Nearly went deaf from the airblast, and some shrapnel damn near took my leg off.
I thought I was a goner, especially when the snipin' started.
Q: Sniping?
A: Well, the current was carryin' us close to the shore. Close enough for any survivin' Lizards and their APCs to start shootin' at us in revenge. There were maybe three hundred of us in the water, and they killed seventy of us before a goddamn miracle.
Q: Miracle?
We stop for a bit at the Boston river. In the distance, a few museum ships can be seen.
A: Well, the water was too shallow for the Massachusetts, and she was pullin' away with the rest of the fleet, since they still wanted a battleship for any further attacks. Patrol boats were stretched thin, since we were doin' landings on the coast to search for human survivors of Footfall. I honestly thought that was gonna be it for me.
And then, guess who came to our rescue? Ol' Ironsides herself. She'd pulled back when the real fightin' started, then she turned back around when we had our last charge. You can't imagine how I felt when I saw that rickety ship come in, firin' honest-to-god broadsides and shreddin' some Lizards as we got pulled aboard. A few of the APCs managed ta hit her, but ya know what they say...
He looks at one of the ships in the harbor- specifically, a wooden sailing ship. A few patches can be seen on its hull, fresher than the others.
Her sides are made of iron.
It's funny. In a modern war for the planet, and what are some of the biggest show stealers? Mighty Mo' and Ol' Ironsides. Really shows that we were willin' to put our history on the line to save it. It worked for Ironsides...
He wipes his eyes, then stands straight.
...and it worked for Mo', too. She may be in Galveston Bay, but she's still with me, too. And she's with everyone she helped save on that day. And as long as we remember that, than I guess she's still with us.
-/-\-
Igoshin V
As the game of weiqi reaches its conclusion, I continue to ask my questions.
Q: As I understand, you were part of the main offensive towards Clermot-Farrand when Operation Earth began. Is that correct?
A: Yes. I was part of the big push. There were probably six million of us there, doing an old-fashioned blitzkrieg right into yascherit-occupied France. We had a side-attack from Switzerland, and the British were doing their own fighting on the shores of La Rochelle. We went through the initial yascherit lines like the fist of Stalin up fascist ass. We almost got hit by our own artillery and bombs, that's how fast we were going.
It was completely chaotic. We had British planes fighting killercraft, we had German bombers hitting yascherit and slony forces on the ground, we had French planes getting knocked out of the skies by lasers... and we had us Russians engaging in armor battles, while the Polish spearheaded an assault right into Vézelay with light tanks and tracked vehicles.
He pantomines wiping his brow.
Those Poles were crazy fucks. The Great Patriotic War gave them a bad rep, but I think it's undeserved. Despite being a bit behind in tech, and being caught completely off-guard by the invasions on both sides that individually outnumbered their army, they still managed to last longer than France, and actually destroyed more German tanks than they lost. Did you know that? I didn't know that until some Pole told me to look it up when I got too smarmy with my jokes. Seeing them in action really changed my opinion on them.
Q: What sort of combat did you see in the first two hours of the offensive?
A: A lot. I was also in Vézelay, along with about ten thousand of my fellow Russians, eight thousand Poles, eight thousand Germans, and nineteen thousand French. It almost reminded me of Chengdu, except there was a lot of rain and French people. And there weren't any mushroom clouds over my head. Actually, it wasn't much like Chengdu. Just did my usual street to street fighting.
He encircles another three of my stones.
Two of my squadmates died in Vézalay, actually. That was another thing that made the fighting different; the yaschertisy were fighting a lot more viciously. I think the nerve gas at Lyon had made them absolutely terrified of getting captured, and that made them go nuts. They actually fought like us humans, which meant tooth and nail. Nearly cost me my nose a few times. Of course, it still didn't save them. You don't try to out Russian the Russians.
Q: But that was still in the first two hours, yes?
A: Yeah, yeah. We all know that the next hour after that was nowhere near as fun.
-/-\-
Rathbone I
Now the owner of a small tea shop in London, Ret. Squadron Leader Lawrence Carlton Rathbone greets me at a parlor by the Thames, where we sit down to afternoon tea. A tall, hawkish figure, Rathbone only has a few grey hairs in his pencil mustache, which he strokes occasionally as we talk.
Q: Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Mr. Rathbone. Let's start with Operation Earth. You were a pilot in the RAF at the time, yes?
A: Yes, indeed. I was a throttle jockey, you see, flying the old Typhoon. Risky business, you must understand; the Chameleons and their Dumbo allies didn't just have the usual chuff and fluff. We had been instructed on the deadliness of their lasers, and so I was flying cherubs four all the way across the Channel, when the offensive began. There were four hundred of us, but the enemy had nearly three thousand bandits in the air. Thankfully, our allies and temporary bedfellows made up for that gap in excess. We were going to need it, you see.
Q: When did you first engage the enemy?
A: Oh, I say I was flying over Le Mans when we had our first snappers. The lasers on the ground took a few good pilots, but we were able to polish off those unexperienced Chameleon pilots like a good soufflé. Then the flying tin openers came in, and we cracked open a few of their armor deployments in the area. Once that was done, we regrouped with our boys near La Rochelle, and linked up with the other Allied pilots near Paris herself as we began the push towards Clermont-Farrand. All in all, casualties had been minimal up until that point. We had lost thirty, and they four times that number.
Q: Then things changed?
A: Well, then the Chameleons finally got their act together, and began to, ah, press their advantages. Which meant for us that now there was a steel rain coming from the sky, and lasers glittering over Normandy as the digit ships started entering attack orbits over the region. Those pesky buggers were far more lethal than the killercraft, considering that they took down sixty of us in the first thirty minutes of their arrival.
Then, well, things started getting worse for our boys on the ground, now that we were being forced to withdraw to more advantageous positions. It was expected, of course; in fact, the plan was to draw their attention, but it was a bit earlier than we would have liked. The only consolations we really had was that some lucky frog managed to take down a digit-ship with its ASATs, and that the angelic cavalry was going to come soon enough.
Q: That honestly sounds like a terrifying situation to be in. What was your reaction to that development?
Rathbone takes a sip of tea.
A: "Oh dear, it seems we're in a spot of trouble".
-/-\-
Saeed V
Saeed sips his mint tea for a few moments, then looks down at his prosthetic arm, flexing its plastic and metal fingers.
Q: When did you lose the arm?
A: Operation Earth. I was part of the first air wave, flying up over the Mediterranean to help the Portuguese and Spanish forces. The cloud cover was still heavy over that region, and it helped to protect us from the lasers on the ground. There must have been a hundred of us, backed up by ten killercraft painted bright blue. The last scraps of the Portuguese air force linked up with us as we began to clear the skies and bomb targets on the ground. All the while, I was worried. Worried that the defectors would suddenly help their old comrades, and start shooting us out of the sky.
And yet, not one did, even as they fired their own weaponry against the enemy. I cannot imagine how that must feel. Such a decision must have eaten away at them, like acid. I'm not sure, if the roles were reversed, and I was invading some alien planet for no good reason, that I could bring myself to do such a thing.
Q: When the Race counterattack happened, where were you?
A: I was chasing enemy killercraft over besieged Madrid when the steel rain came down, and the digit-ships began using their lasers from orbit to strike us down. We'd prepared for the possibility, since that was part of the plan, and so we began to fly beneath the cloud cover. Still, one by one, our aircraft were being taken out.
Funny enough, that wasn't what got me. I had to punch out when some lucky Race infantrymale managed to score a golden bb on my engine. Before I knew it, I was hanging from a tree, and my arm looked as though a crocodile had gotten its teeth into it. Strangely, it did not really hurt at the time; the nausea I felt at seeing my arm like that was the stronger sensation.
I managed to keep a cool head long enough to get free from my parachute cords and get down the tree. Then, I promptly vomited and nearly passed out from the pain as my nerves finally seemed to get the message. Worse still, I was behind enemy territory.
Q: How did you survive?
A: Spanish partisans found me. They'd been operating nonstop since the Race had invaded their nation, and it was thanks to them that Madrid had to be besieged instead of conquered outright. They treated my wounds, then half-carried me over to some old castle they'd made into a hideout. It was rather funny, if you know your history. The idea of Spanish guerillas helping an Arab soldier, instead of fighting.
By then, the steel rain had finally stopped, and the Race counterattack was coming to an end, though we didn't know at the time. The only sign we got was when the radio kept on playing scattered reports of something flying up, and I didn't know enough Spanish to understand what they meant.
After all, why would I need to know the Spanish word for Archangel?
-/-\-
Kông II
Kông doesn't bother to pull up maps as he tells me about Operation Earth, unlike other generals I have interviewed. Instead, he simply closes his eyes and tells me of the more important gains and losses.
A: By the time of the counterattack, we had pushed down to Kuson on an even front, and we were only a few kilometers away from the Indian Army at some places in Pakistan. The farthest south we got was Mingora. The Russians had retaken Georgia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and were at the borders of Iran and Afghanistan. We had faced disorganized resistance, partly due to the Schism, and partly due to the element of surprise. Casualties were in the low thousands by the time of the counterattack.
Q: And then?
A: The orbital bombardment across the planet was the heaviest since the arrival of the fithp. We lost nine hundred tanks in Pakistan. The Russians suffered the heaviest casualties, due to their broader front; I believe they lost two thousand altogether. Aircraft losses were less heavy, only numbering at three hundred.
When the Race pushed back against us, they managed to retake Mingora from us, and half of Tajikstan from the Russians. It was worse, elsewhere; I believe they managed to retake much of Nigeria from the African offensives. The sheer speed and ferocity of this manner of warfare was unseen in history; much of the time, the rate of advance on either side was limited by the speed at which their vehicles could drive. The losses grew great during this hour; we suffered nearly a hundred thousand losses across the planet, while they suffered eighty thousand.
However, these losses were not in vain. As a result of having to divert their orbital firepower, the digit-ships were unable to properly respond to what was the true offensive. I still remember watching the footage as the salvation of mankind rose into the air, seemingly splitting the very sky apart with their thunderous propulsion.
Suffice to say, things changed greatly after that.
-/-\-
A Scrapbook of the War for Earth, Chapter Seven
More reports are coming in from all over the world, and they're all telling the same story... confirmed reports of orbital shelling near Paris, we're working to get it onscreen, and there's also been reports of shelling in Pakistan and Georgia... it seems that the offensive is facing stiff opposition, but I'm not sure if...
Hold on. Hold on. Just a... is this right? Yes. We have
confirmed reports coming straight from the White House, that the military has launched some sort of spacecraft, and it's... oh, they say the spacecraft actually using atomic bombs to propel themselves, and that people in the surrounding areas are to avert their eyes from the glare. The first images are coming in, let's put them onscreen...
Oh my god. This... it seems that the military has actually created a pair of warships, folks, this looks... wow. Yes, more reports are coming in from the White House, they say these are called the Archangels Michael and Uriel... Michael and Uriel, those seem to be references to the Bible. These, uh, these seem to be meant to engage in combat agains the mothership in orbit, and, uh, yes, the White House says these are meant to win back Earth orbit.
Ladies and gentlemen, this seems to be it. This... this is history.
- Live CNN news report on the launch of the Archangels.
I was just tending to my victory garden when the flashes came from beyond the mountains. I didn't know what was going on, at first. I thought it might've been some sort of Lizard bomb going off, and I was about to run inside when I saw them rise over the mountains. Thank God I looked away from the next flash. They must've been a hundred miles away, and it was still pretty damn bright.
Yeah, I saw the two of 'em rising into the air, flash after flash after flash. I had no idea what they were at the time, but all I could think was how they looked like angels on pillars of fire. I wasn't a very devout man, but... it certainly felt like Judgment Day had come.
- Eugene Jones, a native of Santa Fe, on watching the launch of the Archangels.
EXPLOSIVE METAL BOMB INITIATIONS DETECTED IN NEW MEXICO. POSSIBLE SIGHTINGS OF TOSEVITE SPACECRAFT.
- Alert sent to Race forces in America.
We interrupt the report on the counterattack to inform the Russian people that a warship of our own design has launched from a location near Blysk. It, like the American spacecraft currently entering low Earth orbit, is propelled by nuclear bombs. All residents in the highlighted areas are to head indoors, and to not look at the sky as the warship rises to meet with the Americans.
Godspeed, Chongqing and Mumbai. Avenge your namesakes.
- Russia 1 report of the launch of Chongqing and Mumbai, twenty minutes after the launch of the Archangels.
Exalted Fleetlord, we've received satellite imaging of the Tosevite spacecraft, and it is not a good odor. It appears they are being propelled by explosive metal bombs, of all things! The imaging also indicates that they may be heavily armed, and... just a moment, I've lost contact with the Ustiv. The Shanak is also dark. Wait, I'm getting reports of high levels of gamma rays... By the Emperor, I think they have-
- The last transmissions from the 117th Emperor Yower, shortly before being destroyed by a gamma ray laser.
And so, it seems the Winterhome fithp have replied to our Foot with their own Claws. Their madness is truly insurmountable.
- Octuple Leader Bithurkator-lemp, upon seeing the battle for low Earth orbit begin.
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
- A message broadcast across all American military channels, five minutes after the launch of the Archangels.
-/-\-
You have been reading:
Worldfall, Chapter Fifteen: Operation Earth