Thanks, Felonix. As for your complaint, I kind of intended it to be that way so people could wonder who I was writing about. Plus, I find hinting at it kind of adds something, like describing the character's features instead of saying "he's eldar" or something. Lol, that may have just sounded dumb, oh well, I hoped I explained that well
. But I appreciate the advice and will be more careful about that when I do...
Well, here's another one! Got some questions about it at the end...
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:Imperial Translation:
Location: Tarmathon IV- Eastern continent-
Northern region: Nowan grasslands
Shailon City: Category-Capital
Sector: South tourist district- Airport(Tau HQ in shailon)
Time: Day: Four-hundred and sixty: War for Tarmathon IV
10:29 A.M.-Day
“Taskforce?” Or’es muttered beneath his breath, as if he couldn’t decipher the meaning of the words. He shifted in his chair restlessly, blinking as he found himself in the office he had been in mere hours ago. The only difference this time around being the dozen chairs surrounding him, each placed in different angles and occupied with grim faced Shas’Uis and ‘Vres of the Dy’nar cadre. The room was filled to the brimmed with armored warriors, many forced to stand round the door when they had ran out of seats.
A wave of hushed, excited murmuring among the cadre flooded the office. Mun’dal remained completely silent, his hands cuffed beneath his chin as he leaned on his elbows against the smooth, mahogany surface of his desk. Inspecting the officers on the opposing side of his wooden desk, waiting patiently for the quiet chatter to die once more. Once it had, he resumed in a somber tone. “….Yes, a taskforce…”
“Tell me, Or’es…” Mun’dal called out randomly to the first name that came to him. “Do you know how much of the city of Shailon has been liberated for the Tau’va?”
The intensive silence mirrored the tension forming in the room, steadily stirring into an invisible cloud that Or’es broke with a confident response to the question that had been asked. “Roughly half, Shas’El.”
Mun’dal nodded knowingly, reclining in his seat before spinning round to gaze once more upon the mammoth map of Shailon he had posted over the entirety of the glass wall behind him. “Do you know what span of time it took to convert this achievement to reality?”
“Nearly two months, Shas’El.” Or’es blurted it instinctively without thinking, but he was correct nonetheless. It was no secret…
“Correct…”With a grunt of effort, Mun’dal pulled himself out his chair he had been sitting in for the better part of the day, stifling a groan as he stretched unused muscles. No sooner was he fully erected did he revert his view onto the officers of the Dy’nar cadre, not even flinching from the sight of a hundred eyes upon him. “Two months… out of half a year. Can anyone answer me when I ask, why is that so?”
One of the officers from the entrance spoke out. “The Hadon channel.”
“Exactly.” The Shas’El’s tone brightened a fraction. “The Hadon channel, a vast river -decs wide- that winds like a snake through Shailon’s heart and splits it completely in half. I could assume, that when Gue’la settlers had first occupied this city, Hadon served as the critical life line in sustaining their population.”
Mun’dal kneeled to pick some invisible object lying beneath his desk, vanishing behind it momentarily before jutting into view again with a meter long, cylindered, wooden stick. He flipped it up to point toward a blaring, wavy blue line that streaked across the complex array of green lines that formed the city streets of the Gue’la city. “All across this river, numerous, expansive bridges linked the northern and southern halves of the city into one. As you all know, we crippled the last elements of Gue’la strike teams defending south Shailon just yesterday and they have fled in the direction of their stronghold that lies in the north. Unfortunately, a spearhead from the piratical Dark Eldar stalled us and, despite repelling them once more toward the outskirts, kept our forces from pursuing further. This has given the Gue’la more than enough time to destroy whatever bridges they still utilized for their own purposes, isolating themselves from the reach of even our weaponry.”
Mun’dal swatted his stick against the river, emphasizing it out of everything else. “Along this river…are an expansive series of docks on either side and, though they no longer possess much of anything with importance, they still claim something that shall carry the oncoming assault. Here’s the plan…”
“Imperials have fortified their entire side of the river bank with numerous installments of their crude and primitive anti-air weaponry. “Flak” cannons…or so they call it, despite their lacking technology, the sheer number of these weapons have made the option of aerial assault basically obsolete. That is why a taskforce has been called for.”
Mun’dal raised a hand for all to see, raising how many fingers to match his next words. “Four cadres, one task force…and before you ask, yes, Dy’nar is among the chosen.”
The Shas’El paused to let his last sentence sink in, letting the silence settle once more for a few moments before resuming. “Three objectives!” The abruptness of his shout tore everyone from their thoughts, causing many to jump and flinch at the harshness of it. Mun’dal ignored them as he continued. “Invade and clear Port Calines dock of hostiles and destroy all anti-air batteries.”
“How do we get there without a drop ship? The bridges are blown.” One of the Shas’Ui toward the entrance spoke out suddenly.
The Tau officer responded with a heavy sigh, then an answer. “As I have said, the docks in the southern riverbank still maintain something that will carry this assault forward. Gue’la fishing canoes, long, wooden boats, capable of holding a fire warrior team, are in more than enough in numbers to deliver the taskforce to the enemy.”
The somber mood that was mounting in the office found itself instantly replaced with puzzlement and disbelief.
“Command wants us to breach a fortified dock with fishing canoes?” A fire warrior chimed in, obviously skeptical of the call.
“Let me finish.“ Mun’dal once more raised his hand to quiet the louder rumbles of discontent. “Quiet!… You will be riding under the cover of nightfall, you can‘t be detected on their radar systems, so they will have to discover you with eye sight, you shouldn‘t be too far off by then. You will be denied air support until those weapons are down, even then, I could not guarantee it. That and all heavy weaponry must be kept on this side of the river until we can deploy them without risk of ambushes or harassment, that will be just enough to cover your initial assault. Basically you’re on your own for the start of the operation, about two hundred shas’la in all, a hundred kroot, with pathfinder support. Cripple the air defenses in the region, if you can accomplish that, we have four Manta’s worth of reinforcements waiting to be deployed.”
“Four Mantas?” Shas’Vre Ar’o repeated curiously to himself, though not low enough not to carry throughout the room. “That seems like an awful many for a simple break through mission.”
The Shas’El nodded knowingly before turning to the map before him, this time swatting his stick on a patch of green just northwest of the first objective. “This is a park, its ideal elevation currently exploited by an alarming amount of Gue’la artillery batteries that will hinder our progress in taking this district. Intelligence reports state that, at the moment, is lightly if not fortified at all. When your presence is discovered by the enemy, these will work tirelessly to stall and eventually crush your push onward.”
With that said, Mun’dal swayed the pole northeast of Calines to some an outlined structure slightly larger than its surrounding neighbors. “This was once a munitions factory… now it serves a new purpose as a makeshift a Heavy Armor facility, harboring the remnants of a “company” of armored support.”
Slowly, he tilted the wooden pole in between the two, pointing to a variety of streets and structures. “Here…are a series of hastily built trenches, fortifications, and a complex series of tunnels forming into a subterranean network that we believe links all three of these targets into one base. This is not a simple breakthrough, this a major operation that will cost the lives of many, but one that is necessary to achieve our goal, we strike now, or we never. Consider yourselves a part of the spearhead…”
“Now, once we disable the surrounding turrets, the taskforce splits into two teams, two cadres each. We send the Mantas in, drop off reinforcements and support, vehicles and so on. One team will make its way toward the artillery, which would include us, the other, into the factory. With the cadre in full force, gaining the upper hand shouldn’t be difficult. The slower we move, the more alert our enemy becomes, the harder it will be to take these objectives with minimal casualties, the beachhead will be devastating enough. And once that is done, both teams will move at once to surround these fortified areas, and wipe them out in a pincer movement…that’s the strategy, to sum it all up…”
Mun’dal reverted his view once more onto his warriors, knowing he had to say something to stem the somber mood now that everyone began to realize the grimness of the situation. No matter how you looked at it, heavy casualties couldn’t be avoided.
He cleared his throat, waiting till he was sure had the attention of all present in the office. “This day, there will be no trap for the patient hunter to layout for his prey. This day, there will be no critical point to crush with a killing blow. This day, all that exist is one way, and that is the way forward, into the guns of an enemy that knows we shall come. I want all of you, honorable warriors of the fire caste, to know, that when the sun sets this day, and casts us into the shadows of the night, we shall step into the heart of an enemy lair. There will be no street…no structure, no alleyway, no rooftop unfortified from this point on. But we remember our duty, our oath of loyalty that we hold dear to our hearts to the Tau‘va and all that it stands for. We remember our honor, that we serve and strive when we wake in the morning till nightfall to serve the greater good for the Tau race and its beloved empire. If our deaths are what is needed to benefit the Empire, it is a sacrifice that we do willingly, for it is all for higher and noble purpose, in that, there is no shame. Go now, ready your shas’la for battle, dismissed!”
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-Did this part even seem nessecary?
, I suppose I could just throw Or'es into the thick of it and explain later.
-Should I take this and the previous part out concerning the Tau out of this chapter and put into another one? Cause when I look at it, it kind of seems out of place. With the rest of the chapter...