Getting a Base

The growing group had after an evening of planning, had selected a location where they could get all the things that they wanted in base. There was a harbour on the peninsula's northern coast surrounded by several settlements with many bunkers dotted in a semicircular line, forming an perimeter. Johnathan called the town immediately next to the harbour Berlagn and Natalia told them that there was a rather large garrison in the town and harbour although the bunkers and the small villages behind the bunkers had very little protection. The knowledge they had helped them immensely.

Kurt and Ivan had been doing some recruitment during the night and swelled their numbers by freeing prisoners and capturing soldiers. They discovered that a build up of soldiers was occurring, aiming to take the whole island.

"Right, there's about a hundred of us and about a thousand of them. From what we're aware of, there's going to be a lot more of them, very soon. We may very well go into open battle with them in the coming weeks but not today. Today we will take this harbour and its defences without any of them firing a shot." Harry said to all the men and women soldiers who could hear him.

Roy then spoke about the plan in detail, "Harry and Johnathan will lead a group of thirty and capture bunkers on the eastern flank before clearing out the villages in that group's section. Ivan and Natalia will take another group of thirty soldiers and capture bunkers and villages dotted to the west of the harbour. Kurt will take a squad of soldiers and clear out any nearby outposts that can send reinforcements to the harbour. I will stay here with the rest of the soldiers and will send reinforcements to whoever needs them. Our medical, intel and research teams will also stay here until the objectives are secured. Everyone understand?"

Everyone understood and began assembling the equipment they would need.

Before the attack groups departed, Harry and Roy spoke to the group leaders.

"We're also going to be taking over a pair of airfields that are within the perimeter. The aircraft and their pilots are to be captured intact and alive respectively." Roy said.

"Yeah, we've discovered that one the airfields lies in my section and the other lies at the boundary of the two attack sections. They seem to be very lightly defended so they shouldn't pose to much trouble." Harry said.

The attack began just as the sun was beginning to emerge. Harry and his attack group quickly overwhelmed and captured the soldiers guarding the bunkers and villages leading into the harbour. Harry's attack on the airfields almost alerted the soldiers in the harbour, but by nightfall the soldiers of Harry's attack group began attacking the harbour.

Ivan and Natalia's attack group proceeded even more quickly than Harry's group. The Bunkers in their attack section fell without firing a tranquiliser dart. The little towns and villages were quickly overwhelmed and their small garrisons detected to Ivan and Natalia's group. They also overwhelmed part of the airfield that was in their attack sector. Once they reached the outskirts of the harbour, they paused for a few hours until Harry and Johnathan's group began their attack.

The fighting for the harbour proceeded easily at first, numerous guards having been taken prisoner. Then disaster struck as a number of guards raised the alarm and summoned reinforcements. Guards emerged from buildings and small Columns of soldiers equipped with tanks, armoured cars and various types of armoured personnel carriers began racing to the harbour to try and help but were ambushed by Kurt's small squads of soldiers and some of the reinforcements sent by Roy. Eventually the harbour guards were overwhelmed with a few holdouts in the main office building and in some of the ships. Harry took a risk and raced forward to one of the ships. His risky move stunned the defenders so much that they were distracted and were knocked out by the attackers.

Harry was stunned by the sight in front of him. One of the ships turned out to be a mobile cloning facility, with thousands of soldiers ready to be born.

"Boss, the other ships are mobile weapons factories." Johnathan shouted. Harry ran to the ship that Johnathan had just seen the interior of and was shocked. Indeed, the other ships were building all sorts of armaments ranging from pistols to large calibre artillery guns and all the ammunition needed for them. Harry looked like he was stunned and frozen in place. Johnathan was too busy to see as he had begun making sure that the harbour was safe and free from booby traps. Harry moved back to the main office building in the harbour, where Roy, Kurt, Johnathan, Ivan, Natalia and John once he recovered from his shock.

In the early hours of the following morning, Harry and the others were discussing the haul of captured ships, men and materials. They had assembled the majority of the captured tanks and armoured vehicles in Berlagn and placed many guards in and around the bunkers around the newly established base. The captured soldiers switched sides to join Harry and his resistance army.

"I can't believe that they would place all of that equipment in a lightly defended harbour." Roy said, his shock evident to everyone.

"I think someone else placed them there, not anticipating what would happen to them." Harry theorised.

"Hmmm, I agree with that. No professional force would leave them like that unless they thought that all of that equipment was secured and unlikely to be attacked." Kurt said, his gaze wandering towards the ships.

Just then, Natalia and Ivan ran towards the trio, beginning to pant for breath.

"We've just discovered more factory and cloning equipment in the nearby warehouses. We could stop Gene's rebellion right now." Natalia said excitedly.

"I hate to bring you down to earth but I think we only captured a small fraction of the arms and cloning equipment that Gene had. Besides Gene could not have started this by himself." Harry said somberly.

"Yeah, those ships have at least half a dozen different origins between them. Plus the fact, Gene has soldiers from a number of different countries, especially volunteers, suggests that even now, someone is getting them to Gene via some of the other harbours and ports." Kurt said, his eyes continuing to look at the ships and saw some of their prisoners being lead away from the harbour.

"Not all of Gene's soldiers actually follow him. Just spoke with some of them." Johnathan said as he walked towards the small group.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"Apparently the majority of the soldiers who followed Gene's orders were ordered to do so by...oh what's his name... Gromgor Grimhide, I think it was."

"Oh that Bastard. Really, he's helping this guy?"

The rest of the group looked confused as to who Gromgor Grimhide was so Harry explained to them, "Gromgor Grimhide was Emperor Samgon's second in command in Outer Heaven. He now commands Black Zero Command, a splinter faction of Outer Heaven. me and my WSF believe that he still maintains contact with the current leaders of Outer Heaven especially a being known as the Phantom."

"Whatever happened to Samgon?" Roy asked, curious about Outer Heaven even though he had never been in contact with anyone from there.

"I last faced him outside The Empire city of Nuln. Never saw him up close but I did see his position battered by Artillery. After that I'm not certain. Officially, he died there and then and they did find a body to backup that claim. However, I believe that he survived and is in hiding somewhere, preparing his revenge."

"And the Phantom? What do you think about him?" Kurt asked.

"I think at worst, the Phantom is a puppet of Samgon. At best, he's the current strongman of Outer Heaven. He's fairly reasonable to deal with actually." Harry responded.

"Come on, we can talk more about Outer Heaven later. Gene is our more immediate concern." Roy said, shaking his head.

"Roy's right. We should get on with it." Harry said.

As they got back to their tasks, Harry paused. He feared that the situation would already spiral out of control. One wrong move and the peninsula, possibly the entire island, would become a flashpoint that would be impossible to contain.

A/N Please review and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.