Richard Tuttle - 13 Day War

Colonel Potter of the 25 thCorps raced along the road and halted in the gap in the column created by the absence of an entire company. He gazed into the forest and shook his head in disgust. The captain of the next company in the column halted when he reached the colonel. The colonel turned and glared at him.

“How many times must I tell you not to leave the road?” he bellowed.

“My company is still here,” retorted the captain, “but just barely. The men will not stand for being used as targets, Colonel. If they are going to die, they want to at least engage the enemy.”

“And die like them?” the colonel shouted as he pointed towards the woods. “The Lanoirians are trying to get us to do exactly what that fool did. The next captain that defies my orders will die by my own sword.”

The captain opened his mouth to retort, but the colonel’s rage made him think better of speaking his mind.

“And close up the gap in the column,” shouted the colonel.

Colonel Potter stepped off the road to let the column pass by. He stared into the woods, hoping to see some of the ambushed men straggle out of the trees. After a while, he sighed with despair as the forest remained silent. With determination, he turned and started running towards the front of the column. As he passed by the column, he sharply reminded each captain of the need to stay on the road. Eventually he reached the vanguard of the 25 thCorps, but General Gertz was not there. He was informed that the general had gone forward to speak with General Kolling. Colonel Potter continued forward. Eventually, he ran into Colonel Ednor of the 9 thCorps of the Empire of Barouk. The Baroukan colonel looked at his Aertan counterpart and frowned. He waved Colonel Potter to his side and urged him to walk for a while.

“What brings you forward?” asked Colonel Ednor.

“The Lanoirian sniping,” answered Colonel Potter. “We just lost another company. Something must be done about it.”

“Another company?” questioned the Baroukan colonel. “Are the Lanoirians staging attacks on the column?”

“They are sniping the column,” answered Colonel Potter. “They are trying to provoke a reaction, and they are succeeding. I have lost two companies already, and the rest of the men are ready to surge into the forest at the slightest provocation. The snipers must be killed.”

“General Kolling remains adamant on the subject,” replied Colonel Ednor. “We are to ignore the sniping.”

“It cannot be ignored,” Colonel Potter scowled, his voice rising in anger. “The men are being killed as they march along the road. Doesn’t the general know what that can do to morale? It is the mentality of retreat. The men feel as if we are a broken army.”

Colonel Ednor sighed and nodded. “I understand,” he said calmly, “but the Lanoirians seek to delay us. The city of Ongchi stands before us, undefended. General Kolling is determined to seize the city before the Lanoirians can rally to defend it. If that means losing a few men to sniping, it is a small price to pay.”

“Unless you are one of those men,” spat the Aertan colonel. “Perhaps if it were your companies falling to their deaths you might look at things differently, but that is not the case. It is Aertans dying to the snipers, not Baroukans. If you will excuse me, I need to speak to General Gertz.”

The Aertan colonel ran forward. Colonel Ednor frowned as he watched his fellow officer leave, the man’s departing words bouncing through his mind. He wondered if the Lanoirians were clever enough to concentrate their attacks on the Aertans simply to feed a rivalry that already existed between the two Zaran nations. With that thought in his mind, he started running after the Aertan colonel. When they eventually reached the generals, they found them in the vanguard, which had halted at the edge of a large, open valley.

Colonel Ednor was puzzled by the halt in the column. He gazed down into the valley and saw nothing alarming. As his eyes followed the road up the opposite hill, he saw mounds of dirt indicative of trenches just below the ridge. He nodded in understanding as he walked over to where the generals were talking.

“We need to know their strength before attacking,” stated General Gertz. “We have no idea what we are facing.”

“We are facing the remnants of the small force that attacked our rear,” scoffed General Kolling. “There can’t be more than a thousand of them up there. This is another of their feeble attempts to slow us down. We will smash our way through their crude defenses and march over their corpses. They will not slow this army down.”

“They are already slowing us down,” countered General Gertz. “This column is stopped. By the time the rear gathers here for the attack, we will have lost half a day.”

“I do not need the Aertans to break through this rabble of an army,” scowled General Kolling. “Your men can continue to leisurely stroll along the road.”

“Leisurely stroll along the road?” Colonel Potter echoed with outrage. “We Aertans are dying while you Baroukans march in safety.”

General Kolling whirled angrily towards the Aertan colonel.

“If you can’t control your men under march, Colonel,” scowled the Baroukan general, “then General Gertz ought to replace you with someone who can. The loss of a few men is insignificant in the grand scheme of things.”

“I am not talking about a few men,” retorted Colonel Potter. “We have lost over three-hundred men today to snipers, and the day isn’t even half over.”

General Kolling turned to General Gertz, his face red with rage. “Handle your men, Gertz,” he snapped. “I do not have time for petty grievances.”

The Baroukan general walked away from the Aertans, signaling for Colonel Ednor to follow him. The colonel promptly obeyed and the two officers stood on the ridgeline in the center of the road.

“The main prong of the attack will be straight up the road,” declared General Kolling. “I want eight regiments to race across the valley and overwhelm the trenches. The other two regiments are to outflank the enemy, one to the north and one to the south. I want this battle over as quickly as possible.”

“You were serious then about leaving the Aertans out of this?” inquired Colonel Ednor.

“I am serious,” replied the general. “I cannot tolerate the whining of the Aertans. They think going to war should be as safe as marching along the roads of the Federation. Well that is not how life is. Besides, we do not need them for this. Let Gertz spend some time with his men teaching them about the realities of war. Before he is done with his speech, we will be on the other side of those trenches resuming the march to Ongchi.”

* * * *

Above and beyond the trench that General Kolling was planning to attack, the remnants of Colonel Wu-sang’s Lanoirian army prepared for a defiant stand. Determined to block the Federation’s drive to Ongchi, the volunteers vowed to fight to the death.

Rut-ki stood in the forest gazing at the back side of a huge ring of abatis. The tall trees had been felled with precision, with their dense branches facing outward. The resulting bulwarks presented an impenetrable fortress just back from the ridge and unseen from the opposite hill. Just beneath where she was standing was a crude tunnel, and she quickly glanced in its direction as a man came crawling through it.

“We are through,” announced the Lanoirian soldier.

Colonel Wu-sang came running from where he had been informing his men about the plan. He halted alongside Rut-ki and watched the soldier rise from the dirt.

“Is it wide enough for even the largest man?” asked the colonel.

“It will do,” answered the soldier. “It will be a tight fit, and the going will be slow, but the men should be able to make it through if they have time to enter the tunnel.”