Let's Play: Cataphrak's Dragoon Saga

[Rogue Attican]

[X] [HOLT] "How does Takara see our war?"
[X] [HOLT] "Have you done any soldiering yourself?"
[X] [HOLT] "What is your opinion of your visit thus far, sir?"

Click to shrink...

"How does Takara see our war?"

Lord Cassius offers a wry quirk of his lips, half amusement, half embarrassment. "Actually, we do not think much of the war at all," he admits. "To us, it is just another squabble between periphery powers, like the civil war in M'hidiyos."

The ambassador expounds on the matter with a frankness verging on tactless. "Most Takarans concern themselves little with the conflicts and affairs of foreign nations. They are content to sit complacent in the knowledge that if something across the sea were to affect them, then the Aldkizern and his ministries would handle it."

To think that this war against a mighty foe, the greatest and most desperate in your country's history, might be considered little more than a minor squabble is a strange notion. For Tierra, the war is a matter of life and death. To the Takarans, who sit safe behind their all-powerful navy and almighty intelligence apparatus, it is nothing more than a sideshow.

The concept is both humbling and humiliating, and it quickly becomes clear to you that the only profitable course would be to change the subject entirely. "Have you done any soldiering yourself?"

The young Takaran nobleman shakes his head. "I have had no combat experience, if that is what you mean, though…".

His expression turns somewhat annoyed. "I did the course at the infantry officers' training school at Konnoji-zyr-Rusch. My father would hardly have abided a scion of House Holt without formal military training. I suppose my sister will be subject to the same ordeal soon enough."

"Your father puts a great deal of stock in military preparedness?"

Lord Cassius nods. "A great deal of it. He believes that no man or woman can be fit to hold power until they have a grasp of the basics of military command."

Such an experience seems utterly foreign. You cannot think of a time when the baneblooded houses of Tierra would have required their sons not only to acquire commissions within the army but to demand that they earn them through some sort of school like common clerks. Then again, you must suppose that things in Takara are very different, more so in the house of Lord Cassius's father.

The young ambassador seems to scent your apprehension. "I understand such a thing might seem outlandish to Tierrans, but then again, you have not had our experience in such matters. Takara has been a great power since the beginning of civilisation, and we must maintain readiness in the face of impertinent would-be usurpers."

He smiles again, but this time, it is a more sly, thoughtful expression. "The Antari serve as a cautionary tale in that regard. Had the men in charge of Kharangia known how to defend a city, we would likely not be sitting here now."

You feel your eyebrow rise of its own accord. "I beg pardon, sir?"

Lord Cassius either does not sense your protesting tone or intentionally rides roughshod right over it. "From what information I have been able to gather, the Antari bungled the defence badly. Why did they not enfilade the breach with infantry at the top of the walls? Why did they not bury mines in the rubble or set up breastworks behind the breach? There are half a hundred things a competent defender could have done."

[] "Indeed, perhaps such measures would have defeated us."
[] "We would have taken the city regardless."
[] "It is a moot point, for the enemy did not do anything of the sort."

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] "Indeed, perhaps such measures would have defeated us."

The Takaran nobleman smiles. "I dare say they would have. Kharangia's defences could have allowed it to hold off an army three times the size of yours, were they used properly."

"You mean," you reply, "if it had been a Takaran city."

Lord Cassius laughs, bright and silvery, with the slightest accent of derision. "My dear Major, if you had been fighting a war against us, you would never have had the chance to come within sight of one of our cities."

"In any case," the ambassador continues, "this is purely hypothetical. The Antari did none of those things, which is why we are having this conversation now, yes?"

Indeed. "What is your opinion of your visit thus far, sir?"

The ambassador grins. "Aside from the absurd eating utensils, you mean?" He replies, gesturing at the perfectly normal fork in his hand. "Your Duke of Havenport has proven an excellent host thus far, though it is strange, finding myself in a culture which is so…" He grasps for the term. "Inhibited?"

"How so?" You ask, curiosity piqued by the Takaran's observation. "It has always been the impression among us that it is the Takaran culture which is bound most heavily by austere ritual."

Lord Cassius chuckles softly. "Surely you must know that it is only the most formal situations which require such ceremonious stoicism," he replies, his tone chiding. "You must know that outside of such matters, we do not force ourselves into dancing around our opinions, as you Tierrans seem to do so often. We value honesty above such nonsense, which is why…". He stops for a moment, perhaps realising that he dances on the edge of bluntness and tactlessness. "…which is why this all seems very strange to me."

The Takaran looks away, his eyes wandering for a moment before returning. "It is also very unusual to see so many people in uniform and not a single woman among them. It is not like Takara at all," he notes. "The practice of barring women from your senate—well, your Cortes—and your army seems like a very…". Lord Cassius pauses for a moment. "…a very quaint tradition."

[] "Tierran ladies are not blessed with the advantages of the women of Takara."
[] "You may think what you like; I've no opinion on the matter."
[] "Not a quaint tradition, a pointless and self-defeating one."

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] "Not a quaint tradition, a pointless and self-defeating one."

"Is that so?" Lord Cassius responds, his lips twisted in a faintly amused grin.

You nod in reply. "It seems to me most unreasonable that we must consider our baneblooded ladies—who have proven themselves capable of commanding a household of a hundred servants, enduring the ordeals of childbirth and child-rearing, and comporting themselves gracefully in court dress which often weighs no less than an infantryman's pack—of insufficient mettle to go about the business of defending and governing the realm."

The Takaran nods in agreement. "Such an opinion cannot be common if your society insists on resisting such a compelling argument."

You shake your head. "I must confess that it is not."

The ambassador's smile grows wider. "You are an exceptional credit to your race then, Major," he says with an approving tone free of sarcasm. "We must hope that more of your people come to see things as you do."

Before you can speak again, your thoughts are interrupted by the bright ringing of a spoon being tapped upon crystal. Your eyes are drawn to the source of the noise, and as soon as you fix upon it, you are filled with a pall of dread. His Grace, the Duke of Havenport is standing, and in his hand rests a glass of rich Cunarian red.

The toasts have begun.

Over the next half-hour, you have little time to think about anything. All you can do is raise your glass as Havenport and his fellow senior officers offer toast after toast; first, the obligatory one to the health of His Tierran Majesty, then to the Takaran Aldkizern and Lord Cassius, and then a sequence of more plaudits directed to increasingly more superfluous figures and abstract concepts, accompanied by increasingly longer and more wearying speeches.

You have almost stopped paying attention to the words of each toast, and your eyes are glazed over when you hear yet another one begin.

"There is one man here who stands among the best of us," drones a colonel of the Line Infantry whom you have never met before. "Of all the heroes which the bitter struggle for this city has made, he stands foremost in their ranks, having braved the brunt of the enemy's fire to clear a path through Kharangia's defences."

He raises his glass towards you. "To Sir Alaric d'al Castleton of the Royal Dragoons!"

The words hit you like a thunderbolt. Still dazed, you stand, facing the smiling faces and raised glasses of dozens of officers, from junior infantry captains to the Duke of Havenport himself.

You are not sure your name has ever been subject to this sort of admiration before, not from men who rank as your equals and superiors. True, the King once honoured you before, but on that day, he had honoured hundreds of men, of whom you were merely a single entry. Here, you are singled out for praise. Frankly, it fills you with feelings of…

[] Exhilaration; so this is the nectar of true fame.
[] Satisfaction; finally, recognition for my deeds.
[] Emptiness; approval for such heroism is not worth the price it has cost.
[] Confusion; I hear no mention of Cazarosta, who led the Forlorn Hope with me.

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] Satisfaction; finally, recognition for my deeds.

You let the approval of your fellow officers envelop you. You smile, not the forced grimace demanded by propriety but a genuine expression of serenity and contentment.

There is a rightness to this, to the way which the men around you, dazzling in their dress uniforms, now raise their glasses and toast to your health. You have sacrificed much, suffered much, for such men. It seems only proper that they offer you a gesture of gratitude for it.

More toasts follow. "To a fruitful campaigning season," perhaps, or "To our friends and fellows in His Majesty's Navy, may the convoys they guard arrive swiftly and safely." Finally, all that remains is for Havenport to offer the customary final toast of the evening.

"Ladies and gentlemen, to the valiant dead. May their names be remembered forevermore," he intones.

"The valiant dead," you echo solemnly through the weary chorus.

As gratified as you may be by the end of the toasts, the fallen of His Majesty's army, among them good men whom you have fought beside, deserve all the respect you can muster for them. That is something you will not forgo for any reason.

Now, with the toasts dispensed with, the tables are cleared, the few ladies in attendance make their way out, and the evening devolves into its most informal and terminal phase. Out comes the thick M'hidiyossi cigars, the small glasses of Wulframite digestive liquor both thick and sweet, and the bottles of brandy.

To your right, a heated debate erupts over some nonsensical scandal involving an actress and some baronet whom you have never heard of. To your left, Lord Cassius speaks in hushed tones with the Duke of Havenport.

Only now do you finally have the time to form an opinion of the Takaran envoy:

[] Lord Cassius is a pompous fool, nothing less, and certainly nothing more.
[] Surely, he is an arrogant fellow but an intelligent and good-hearted one.
[] A friendship with such a man would serve my ambitions well.
[] I would like nothing better than to be his friend.

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] I would like nothing better than to be his friend.
To resolve the three-way tie, I'll select the only option that boosts our relationship with Cassius vam Holt.

Click to shrink...

As far as you can tell, there is little of the Takaran ambassador which you have reason to find fault with; he is earnest, intelligent, and open. You do not doubt that you have as much in common with each other as might be reasonably possible, considering your different backgrounds and stations. Yes, you think you rather like the fellow.

He turns to you now, his expression still smiling and earnest. "Well then, it seems a good thing indeed that we have been able to introduce ourselves to each other."

You smile back. "Indeed, it has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance," you reply coolly, though not untruthfully.

Lord Cassius's grin grows wider. "Good! Good! It must do for us to get along, especially as you are to be the one to command my escort."

Your thoughts freeze in mid-stride. "Your escort?" you echo.

The point-eared envoy nods. "Yes, to take me to your King. We shall be seeing a great deal more of each other in the weeks to come."

Well, is that not a fine surprise?

 

[Rogue Attican]

Chapter VII
In which the CAVALRY OFFICER conveys the TAKARAN AMBASSADOR to HIS TIERRAN MAJESTY.​

You are given three days to roust your men from their winter quarters. Harness is refurbished, horses are worked up, and your men set upon the process of discarding the trappings of a garrison unit ensconced in a comfortable billet to make themselves ready for action once more. It is a process greatly complicated by the simultaneous arrival of your requested replacements, who introduce their own set of headaches.

Still, somehow, on the fourth morning after the dinner where you so abruptly received news of your assignment, you find yourself leading your squadron and its supply train into the square before Kharangia's northern gate. Lord Cassius is there to greet you, accompanied by another Takaran.

"I trust your soldiers are ready, Major?" He asks as you ride up to him.

You take one last look over your shoulder at your squadron, assembled and mounted behind you, before answering Lord Cassius's question with a look of confidence. "I do believe they are as ready as they could possibly be."

The Takaran nods sagely. "Then I shall defer to your judgement on the matter, Major. I would be a poor judge of such things myself, seeing as Takaran standards are so much different from Tierran ones when it comes to the readiness of fighting soldiers."

Of course. You imagine that such standards would be much higher in the Takaran army, where even the greenest soldier would have years, if not decades of drill behind them.

Indeed, such a comparison cannot help but be highlighted by the ambassador's own appearance as he sits beside you in the exquisitely worked saddle of his white charger. Lord Cassius seems to you, garbed as he is in the dark-blue high-collared undress tunic and round-topped field cap of the Line Infantry, as the very model of a Takaran officer, complete with a matched warsword and bayonet belted to his side.

Likewise, the ambassador's companion—an older fellow who appears to be something in between a valet and a bodyguard—is dressed and armed in the exact same manner.

The two Takarans quickly take their places at the head of the column. You are about to give the order to set off when you hear a familiar voice call out from behind you.

"Oh, quite good! We have caught you after all!" exclaims Lady Katarina, sleek in a double-breasted sable riding habit, as she eases her horse up next to yours, trailed by a pair of women you assume to be her maids.

"I was detained by some last-minute business," she explains cheerfully. "I was afraid I would be late, but I see I have arrived in time, after all."

You had not exactly expected to see Lady Katarina here, but not even your surprise can shock you out of your good manners, not when introductions have yet to be made. "Lady Katarina, I have the pleasure to introduce Lord Cassius vam Holt, the Takaran Ambassador."

The elven diplomat bows low in his saddle. "I sit astonished, my thoughts falling to dust before such great beauty," he says, silk in his voice and a smile upon his lips.

If the Takaran's words have any effect on the Royal Intelligence operative, she does not show it, turning directly to you. "I must apologise for the inconvenience, of course, but the exigencies of service require us to travel the same path once more."

You nod. "So you are to travel with us?"

Lady Katarina smiles sweetly. "Is that not what I just said?"

Thankfully, aside from that first surprise, your first day out from Kharangia passes without major incident. The road you have been required to travel upon proves broad and relatively smooth, the mud having been dried hard by the full force of the spring sun. Likewise, you travel unmolested by partisans; few dare attack this close to Kharangia's bastions.

The lack of major problems undoubtedly is a good thing; it gives you time to allow your new men to settle in. While you did your best to ensure that your replacements were the best possible, they remain the best out of a very bad lot, inferior to your veterans in all aspects.

Discipline: 49%
Morale: 59%
Loyalty: 56%
Strength: 98%

Click to shrink...

Of course, getting them up to snuff isn't quite your problem. That's what your squadron has corporals and sergeants for. Indeed, instead of having to supervise your new men personally, you find yourself growing increasingly bored by the long ride. Perhaps it would be best to find some productive way to spend time in the days ahead.

[] My time would be best served speaking with Lord Cassius.
[] I would like to spend my time getting to know Lady Katarina better.
[] I shall continue to ride with my officers and men.

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] I shall continue to ride with my officers and men.

You cannot, of course, actually chat with your subordinates. A Tierran officer must observe some level of decorum—boundaries which must be observed—and to converse casually with junior officers, or worse, common soldiers, whilst in the open for all to see is much akin to riding across that boundary at full gallop.

This does not, of course, mean that you cannot listen in on your men as they speak with each other or watch their moods as they ride in column. Such observation does not go unnoticed for long. Three days out, you find Lanzerel pulling his horse back towards you, an open notebook in one hand.

"Sir?" He asks as he pulls his mount alongside yours and offers you the book with one hand. "Might I request that you look these numbers over for me, seeing as you do not appear busy at the moment? I fear I may have made some mistake in their calculation."

You glance at the relevant equations. Almost immediately, you spot two errors, rather obvious ones. It does not shock you that the expensive tutors your family hired to teach you maths had done a rather better job than whatever half-literate rustic had schooled your Staff-sergeant.

It is only after you point out the corrections that you take a second, closer look at the notebook itself, or rather, the names of your squadron's men written in neat rows down the margins, each accompanied by a sum of money.

"Staff," you ask, "is this a ledger?"

Lanzerel nods. "It is, sir," he answers after a moment of hesitation.

You feel your suspicions rising. "For what purpose?"

"For the welfare of the men, sir," your Staff-sergeant replies. "A lot of the lads are young, sir, too young. For many, this is their first time away from home, the first time they've had real money in their pockets; they don't often spend their pay wisely." He shakes his head. "Oftentimes a man wakes up the day after he's paid poorer than he was the morning before."

"And this ledger is to rectify that problem?" You ask. "How, exactly?"

"I let each man keep nine-tenths of their pay every month," Lanzerel explains. "That leaves them enough for gin and skirts. The rest I gather and send to a bank in Aetoria. If a man dies, I pay his share to his family, but if he doesn't, he'll have a tidy pile of coin waiting for him when this war ends, and he goes home."

You nod in agreement. Common soldiers are not often known for their ability to manage their finances wisely. "It is an admirable measure, Staff."

Lanzerel barks out a sharp laugh. "Not all the men think so, sir, not yet."

"I am sure they will see the wisdom of it in time," you reply as you hand back the ledger. "Carry on."

Your Staff-sergeant raises his fingers to the brim of his helmet in a cheerful salute. "Thank you, sir. I mean to, sir."

-​

The next few days see you press slowly but steadily northwards. Weighed down as you are by the dozens of mules carrying your squadron's supplies, you barely make thirty kilometres a day, if that. Before long, though, your column moves out of the flat coastal basin around Kharangia and into more hilly ground. Here and there, you find the road eroded by small tributaries, rivulets of water cutting across the ancient roadway along impromptu riverbeds worn by centuries of snowmelt to flow into the swollen body of the River Kharan.

It is just as the rear of your column crosses one of these small and temporary streams that you hear a sudden and entirely familiar sound echo from beyond the bend in the road ahead: the staccato crack of volley fire.

You spur Faith into a trot and beckon for the rest of your column to follow. Your horses' hooves pound rapid drumrolls against the packed earth as the distant musketry grows in both volume and intensity.

You lead your men around the bend, one hand gripped white-knuckled around your sabre…

…only to find the battle already over.

Before you sits a wide field, easily four or five hundred paces across. At your end, near the side of the road, stands the source of the gunfire, a cluster of men wreathed in the white haze of powder smoke. They are uniformed, not in the burnt orange of the Tierran Line Infantry but in tunics and trousers of deep forest green trimmed in black. In their hands, they hold not infantry muskets but slim hunting rifles.

There are perhaps two dozen of them left standing. Around them, you count half a dozen more, dressed in the same uniforms, dead or wounded.

Regardless of their losses, it seems that the strange riflemen have prevailed, for at the far end of the clearing, a force of Antari on horseback flee into the brush, leaving the open ground behind them strewn with their own dead.

One of the green-jacketed men sees you. There is an alarmed shout, and some of the rifles snap away from the fleeing Antari and towards you. One of them, their leader you presume, shouts something. The rifles point away, and the small group begins to move towards you, looking more like uniformed poachers than any formed body of men.

Their leader steps forward. He is a big, lean man, his face raked with roguish scars, his features seeming as if they had been rough-hewn from a block of some heavy wood. His long, dark hair falls lank over his face as he looks you straight in the eyes.

"Alright," he says in a thick Wulframite accent, his voice as rough and belligerent as a half-drunk yeoman. "Who the bloody Martyr are you?"

[] "I might ask you that same question."
[] "Major Alaric d'al Castleton, Royal Dragoons. At your service, sir."
[] "I am Major Alaric d'al Castleton of the Royal Dragoons. Who the bloody Martyr are you?"

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] "I am Major Alaric d'al Castleton of the Royal Dragoons. Who the bloody Martyr are you?"

The other man replies with a coarse, rumbling chuckle and a salute. "Lieutenant Cedric Lewes, sir, Experimental Corps, and if you're Dragoons, then my lads and I need your help."

Lewes tilts his head in the direction of the far side of the clearing, where the last of the Antari cavalry are continuing to make their escape. "Like as not those buggers will be back soon. I'd rather they run themselves into two hundred men than twenty."

"Ain't seem like they're going to be heading back anytime today," Lord Renard observes as he watches the enemy flee. "Look like the curs are running tails 'twixt legs from here." He turns to the green-jacketed officer suspiciously. "How're you so sure they'll be back?"

"Because, ye daft idiot, they've got no choice!" Lewes growls back.

Your Lieutenant winces at the other officer's harsh tone. "Sharpish fellow, ain't he?" he mutters in your ear.

​

"Those men belong to Khorobirit's army," Lewes continues. "They're mounted scouts, riding ahead to secure a route for their infantry and their guns. That means they're about to cut off Fort Kharan and march on Kharangia with nobody the wiser." Lewes scowls. "Except now we've seen 'em, and they know that they need to kill us or Khorobirit loses the element of surprise."

You nod, accepting the sheer enormity of what Lewes has told you. All that stands between Prince Khorobirit and total operational surprise is this scruffy officer, who is clearly not quite a gentleman, and his two dozen beleaguered men….

Or is it?

It does not take a genius to realise that you could simply leave Lewes and his men to their fate and warn Fort Kharan yourself. After all, your primary objective is to deliver Lord Cassius and Lady Katarina safely to their destination, an objective that taking unnecessary risks would only make more difficult to achieve. Surely, such a mission could be argued to be more important than the lives of a few common soldiers.

"Are you not capable of holding out by yourselves?"

"With two dozen of the best infantry in the King's Army? I could hold out all bloody day," Lewes scoffs.

Then the other man frowns. "It wouldn't be easy, though, or cheap." He looks over at the handful of green-jacketed corpses that mark the bloody patch of ground where the Experimentals had stood their ground. "They've already bled us some, and when they come back, they'll bleed us more."

He turns back to you, not with a look of sadness or despair but with the pained, blunt look of a workman faced with a fresh load of stones or a surgeon about to cut someone's leg off. "Aye, we'll hold out, but I'll lose half my men doing it if we go it alone. Rifles can kill a man from a distance, but we don't have enough to keep them from getting close."

Lewes looks at you, past you, to the ranks of mounted soldiery assembled behind you. "With your dragoons, we'd have enough guns to keep the enemy at a distance, shoot them down before they could close, pick them off until they lose their belly for fighting."

You nod. The Experimental Corps officer has a point; staying to help would make things safer for him and his men, at least.

You, on the other hand, would be risking your men and your mission. You do not know if your dragoons' carbines and the Experimentals' rifles will keep the enemy at bay, as Lewes claims. The Antari might return with greater reinforcements or firelocks of their own.

You do not consider yourself a callous man, but even you must admit that the lives of a handful of infantry seem to pale in comparison to the importance of your own mission. "You are sure retreat is not an option?"

"You mean run?" Lewes scoffs. "We couldn't outrun cavalry on a good day. After a day's fighting and with men wounded? Well, we certainly couldn't bloody well do it now, could we?"

Lewes's jaw sets, his eyes narrow, and his expression takes on the countenance of a man set in his opinion like a garrison behind the walls of a fortress. "No, we must stand and fight, with or without you."

"I note a distinct lack of a 'd'al' in your name, Lieutenant Lewes."

Lewes replies with a coarse bark of a laugh. "Ain't got one, sir, never had one."

You close your eyes for a moment, focusing your banesense as deeply as you can on the man before you. It only takes a moment of concentration to confirm it. Lieutenant Cedric Lewes is baneless.

It seems you are not the only one who's noticed.

"A commoner carryin' an officer's commission in His Majesty's army?" Lord Renard exclaims incredulously. "Ain't there rules against that sort of thing?"

Lewes nods. "Aye, there are," he replies, the bitterness plain on his face, "but the Experimental Corps needs all the officers it can get. Of course, proper officers—" He twists the last two words as if they were an insult. "—wouldn't be caught dead in an outfit like this."

With a wave of his hand, he encompasses not just you but your three lieutenants behind you. "Proper officers, they want loot to buy their way up and the sort of glory that gets them knighthoods and fame, and the gratitude of kings," he says, looking you straight in the eye.

"Aye, that's what you are, a proper officer, looking for the things that proper officers want, and you'll find none of that hunting partisans through a forest at the head of three dozen ex-poachers and broken men." He shakes his head. "Naw, this ain't work fit for proper officers, so they came to me and asked if Sergeant-major Cedric Lewes would like to be a brevet lieutenant 'for as long as His Majesty's government requires.'" He laughs again, sour and bitter. "And bein' a bloody fool, I said yes."

So, Lewes holds a brevet rank; he might call himself an officer and he might wear an officer's rank but he certainly holds no permanent commission within the King's Army. You suppose that when the Experimentals are disbanded, he will revert to his regular non-commissioned rank.

[] [LEWES] A pity; the army could use officers like Lewes, common or not.
[] [LEWES] Good; men like Lewes might serve as a stopgap, but no more.
[] [LEWES] Even giving a commoner a brevet officer's rank goes too far.

[] [FIGHT] "Very good, we'll lend a hand."
[] [FIGHT] "I'm afraid I've more pressing matters."

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] [LEWES] A pity; the army could use officers like Lewes, common or not.

From what you have seen, Lewes seems to have done a fine job as an officer thus far, certainly better than certain 'proper' officers whom you have met in the past. Indeed, it seems a pity that he must be returned to the ranks once his brevet promotion is rescinded.

Still, the baneless are not allowed permanent officers' commissions for good reason. While some common soldiers like Lewes might show a talent for leadership, they lack the natural talent for command that all banebloods are born with. The best baneless might prove better than the worse banebloods, but that does not mean all baneless are fit to lead.

You could only think that men like Lewes and your fellow Dragoon Cazarosta, who have managed to serve tolerably as officers despite their lack of baneblood, represent the exception rather than the rule.

It is a shame, though, that an exception cannot be made for the few baneless who prove themselves exceptionally suited for an officers' commission.

[X] [FIGHT] "Very good, we'll lend a hand."

Lewes nods, though his smile is hard and grudging. "See, that wasn't so hard a decision after all, was it?"

A new voice comes from behind you. "Then you shall fight?" Lord Cassius asks as he rides up to you. "Most interesting. I shall have to watch closely."

"On the contrary," Lady Katarina interjects as she too rides up to the head of the column. "Your Excellency's safety is our top concern. You must withdraw to a safe distance."

The Takaran aristocrat answers with a derisive snort. "My lady, I am quite capable of handling myself in battle. I am certainly not to be frightened by some poorly-drilled rabble the likes of which even mere Tierran Line Infantry might see off—" He turns to Lewes apologetically. "Ah, no offence."

The green-jacketed officer grunts. In his position, he has no doubt heard worse insults.

Lord Cassius smiles brightly. "Besides…" He gestures to his attendant, still silent in the saddle beside him. "Leud will keep me safe, will you not?"

The Takaran's servant nods. "Iha, mir hiir," he replies stolidly as if the task of defending his master's life were no more mundane than brushing his coat.

Katarina only seems to meet Cassius's assurances with fresh insistence. "While it is known that Takarans possess many natural abilities that humans do not, invulnerability is not one of them. One stray shot might precipitate a diplomatic catastrophe. Thus, it would be best to keep the ambassador away from any fighting." She turns to you expectantly. "Would you not agree, Major?"

[] "Agreed. Your Excellency, you must go to the rear."
[] "Perhaps it would be best to allow him to take a look."

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] "Agreed. Your Excellency, you must go to the rear."

The Takaran diplomat scowls. "Very well, if you insist," he replies, turning his horse back around.

"You know, Major," he says as he passes you by, "some would take this as an insult to the martial prowess of the Takaran soldier. Consider yourself lucky I do not."

Then, with a stiff nod, he continues past you, back down the road, and to safety, with Lady Katarina following behind. With that situation dealt with, you once again turn to Lewes. "I trust you have some sort of plan in mind?"

The grizzled Lieutenant nods and points to the near edge of the clearing. "If your men dismount, sir, then they'll have enough cover to hide in there. When the enemy comes back and charges at us, you can pop out and take 'em in the flank." Lewes smiles with grim satisfaction. "Aye, that'll do the bastards."

It is not a particularly complex plan, the rough improvisation of an unschooled NCO, not the elegant battle dance of a baneblooded staff officer. In this case, the problems with such a crude battle plan seem quite obvious.

The first is the fact that Lewes's plan only sees fit to drive the enemy off again. While catching the enemy in a sudden crossfire might inflict heavy casualties, a great number of the enemy are likely to get away.

Secondly, there is the fact that the plan would require his own Experimentals to remain in the open, a sitting target for the enemy should they not be repulsed by your first sudden volley.

Then again, perhaps it would be better if someone more experienced in tactics and command were to take charge of planning the upcoming action.

In such a case, you could not think of a more qualified candidate than yourself.

[] Despite its shortcomings, Lewes's plan of battle should serve.
[] No, I will take charge.