Trevor nodded his head in agreement.
Brewer presented more specifics. “General Shepherd has proposed an ambitious plan to take out both of those depots while we encircle the retreating enemy. Encircled and without supplies we can then reduce them with artillery and whatever air power we can muster. Think of it, eight thousand Hivvans surrounded and cut off. We could wipe them out.”
“Oh, that is being wonderful,” Omar spoke. “But how can we possibly do such a thing? Our supplies are low as it is!”
Knox said, “Think. The Hivvans have about seven thousand more troops garrisoned in Columbia. If the forces retreating from Raleigh make it back to Columbia then we’ve got a real dogfight on our hands when we get down there. If we can cut them off and destroy them then taking Columbia becomes a lot easier. Take Columbia and you free more than ten thousand human slaves and you break the back of the Hivvans in the Carolinas. They would have to withdraw all the way to Atlanta.”
“It would shorten this phase of the war,” Trevor simplified. “Save human lives and free more slaves. In the long run, it would mean fewer supplies needed to get the job done.”
Brewer continued with the details. “Shep proposes to send Stonewall’s 2 ^ nd Mechanized Division along I-95 and into South Carolina. They will first occupy Dillon then head toward the coast to hook up with the second branch of the attack, which will be Shepherd’s own 1 ^ st Mech Division. He will lead them down I-40 to Wilmington then hang a right to follow Route 17 until he gets to Conway. At that point the trap would close; the Hivvan army would be cut off.”
Knox enlightened them, “Intelligence indicates no large, organized forces in Wilmington, just animals as well as some human groups who have carved out small sanctuaries in different neighborhoods. General Shepherd’s group could actually bypass the city proper. We could then send Hunter-Killer groups to take care of Wilmington and secure the force’s rear area and supply lines.”
“Sounds simple, Gordo,” Dante sneered.
“It is, Mr. Jones. It is. We just have to tough it out.”
Reverend Johnny boomed as he spoke directly at both Trevor and Jon Brewer. “Praise the Lord, your ambition burns hotter than Lucifer’s kitchen. Can such a feat be done? Perhaps your reach exceeds your grasp.”
“Perhaps,” Trevor answered. “Either divine intervention or luck has given us an opportunity to deal a fatal blow to our enemies. If we can move these two armies quickly, we can cut off our enemy and destroy him at a relatively small cost. But the effect, Reverend, would be catastrophic for our opponents.”
Brewer added, “You have to remember, the retreating Hivvans abandoned ammunition and supplies when they ran out of Raleigh, and now they are on bad ground. The roads are thin and in poor shape, the terrain around those roads is wet or dense or both. Their movement will be restricted. It will take them days just to reconstitute. After that they will rely on those supply convoys either to retreat or counter attack. No matter how you look at it, take out those depots, surround the Hivvans, and they will whither and die.”
“Looks like a race,” Brett pointed out. “Wait now. Yep, that’s what it is. It’s a race to get those two pincers into position before the Hivvans can get out of the trap. I’m guessing if we win that race, they die. But if they get out of the noose then we’ve gone and wasted a heck of a lot of materials. Gee, not only that, our boys would be in bad shape to fend off a counter attack.”
“What kind of time frame we looking at?” Lori Brewer asked
Her husband answered, “We think we can complete the encirclement in a week or so, depending on what type of smaller hostile forces we encounter.”
Anita Nehru offered her insight on that matter. “You’ve got a lot of swamps down there. Great hangouts for Deadheads, Snake-Beasts, and Giant Skip-Beetles. Even though the Hivvans are reptilian, we know they don’t like swamps or even the wilderness in general, not unlike us.”
Trevor said, “It’s going to take them time to get organized. They are under constant harassment and their lines of communication are sketchy right now. I think Stonewall and his unit did an even better job of whacking them than we first thought.”
“Right. I suspect you’re going to need a ton of fuel, a heap more in ammunition, and a couple of warehouses worth of food for all this,” Stanton said.
Trevor voiced what they all thought: “That means diverting more from civilian stocks. That means putting distribution people in Raleigh right away. It means more head aches and a lot more screaming from Eva Rheimmer.”
Dante Jones said, “Our supplies are at the breaking point right now. If this doesn’t work, we’ll be in a world of hurt.”
“People, this is a tremendous opportunity,” Trevor told them. “If it works, then we’ll have time to get caught up on the internal stuff because the Hivvans will be beaten all the way back to Atlanta. Throw in Jon’s northern expedition and the next few weeks could determine the outcome of this war. Some may ask, why take this risk? Why push things too hard? I say fortune favors the bold. I say there is a reason why we have learned of these runes. There is a reason why one of our most clever enemies has made such a foolish mistake. Maybe it’s destiny. Maybe it is a higher power keeping watch on us. Maybe dumb luck. Whatever it is, we would be fools if we did not act. I have faith that we can get it done because I have faith in you people.”
He glanced around the room at his lieutenants, gauging them; looking at their hearts. As he did, he filled them with confidence. He had, after all, led them to victory after victory. This was the man-the leader — who had told his defeated, worn forces at the Battle of Five Armies that they could win by charging a better armed, more numerous opponent. He had been right.
“What better way to introduce us to the world than to embark on two fantastic adventures? Let this be our formal introduction. Let our enemies know that there is no power greater than us. No greater power than The Empire.”
5. Opposing Views
“A politician, Proteus-like, must alter
His face and habit; and, like water, seem
Of the same colour that the vessel is
That doth contain it, varying his form,
With the chameleon, at each object’s change.”
— Mason
Evan sat at the head of his own conference table. Certainly not as grand as the council chambers, and the authority he exuded not as dominating as Trevor’s authority. Nonetheless, his followers were as loyal as Stone’s cronies.
A half-dozen of them gathered at Evan’s table in what had once been the editorial offices of The Citizen’s Voice newspaper in downtown Wilkes-Barre, just outside the zone of rubble left from the Redcoat bombardment nearly five years before.
“So what have we got for tomorrow’s edition?”
Evan meant, of course, the next issue of The New American Press: his own newspaper, distributed in several cities via hard-driving couriers.
A young man with thick glasses and wearing a plaid shirt pulled a batch of loosely organized papers from a folder and offered a checklist of sorts. “Um, well, we’ve got the page one story on Raleigh and a sub-head working the over-extended angle. Then there’s directional headers that will lead people to the nuclear reactor waste issue at Three Mile Island then-”
“What’s the Raleigh story? What’s the angle?”
An older man with broad shoulders dressed in an Oxford University polo replied, “It’s a two-pronged story that interviews a couple of soldiers who complain about the lack of front line supplies, that forces are stretched too thin-that sort of thing. Then we got a witness who says it was a human artillery shell that hit the slave camp on the northeast side and killed ten people. The military claims it was a Hivvan Battlebarge, but they’re lying.”
“Wait, just wait,” Evan held a hand aloft. “Exactly what is it this article is going to imply? Is it slanted against the war? Is that what I’m hearing?”