Chaos Rises - The Fall of Touimai (Part 8)

I took a rest and Heodia was nursing the young child that we had confirmed was female. 
Uto left and just told me that he was going to create a clone copy of himself. 

"How's her condition?" I asked. 

"It's much better now. Her body is very weak and she is lacking many nutrients but she will survive. I'll go make something for her." 

"Did Uto give you some ingredients?" 

"Yes, he did." replied Heodia. 

I stood up from the chair I was resting on and headed towards the bed where the girl was sleeping on. Heodia boiled some water and took out a small cup and opened the paper..? lid halfway. She then put the boiled water into the cup, closed the lid with a small silver bag and waited. 
I had never seen that ever before in my life. 

"What's that?" I asked Heodia. 

"This?" she replied back. "This is the ingredient that Uto had given me. It's called Instant Ramen from what I had been told. And it's from the outside world, where Uto is from, and it's quite popular there." 

Instant Ramen eh? Sounds interesting. But how instant is it?

"So how instant is it?" I decided to ask.

"Around 3 minutes, give or take." 

"That's actually quite fast-" I started but metallic thunder noises erupted throughout the sky. 

"The 3rd round huh." Heodia said. 

The first explosions happened around the house we were staying in. 

"Are you sure that we are safe?" 

"Yeah! Just put your trust in Uto!" 

"Okay?" I replied. 

Hundreds of explosions all occurred within seconds, leaving Touimai even more in ruins. I tried to ignore all of the sounds that were happening outside of the house and I was doing okay until a shell hit the barrier. The explosion nearly deafened me and the shockwaves created by the released energy of the shell made me lose balance and I fell onto the floor. 

"You okay Void?" asked Heodia, standing perfectly fine. 

"Yeah, I'm fine." I replied. "And man, the barrier is sure strong. It took on a 28 cm shell and its energy like nothing."

"That's why I told you to put your trust in Uto." Heodia replied. "And the ramen is nearly ready, so wake up the girl peacefully." 

I nodded. The young child's black hair was like cosmos sky up far in the north, and her slender body told signs of starvation and lack of nutrients just like how Heodia said. Her facial features were silky white skin like snow so I guessed that she was from the countries of either Bodukino, Solpeo, Phermanue, the country we were trying to escape to, or The Arctic Federation. But chances are that she may also be from the Nodern (It literary means 'North') Territory of the Cloud Empire, which if so, then it would be quite problematic but as she is a child still, I don't think that she will cause much trouble for us. 

I gently whisper and rock her body and eventually, she woke up. The first thing I saw was her beautiful crystal blue eyes that shone like the blue-coloured stars in the sky staring directly into my own blue eyes. 

"Ah. Hello. I'm Void. What's your name?" I asked. 

She did not answer and looked puzzled. I turned to Heodia, who was coming to help. 

"I think there may be a language barrier between us." I said. 

"No. That is not the case. There's no language barrier between you and her. She's probably just a bit confused about where she was." she replied. "Give her some time to comprehend the information."  

"Well alright." 

After some time, she finally stopped looking puzzled and got up from the bed. She slowly and wobbly limped towards the table. 
I noticed her limping to the table and helped her by just carrying her to the table. 

"T-thank you," she whispered. 

"No problem," I replied. 

Heodia served the instant ramen to the child who ate it with no fuss. And from her mostly expressionless face, when she took the first bite, her face lit up. It was the first sign of emotion I had seen on her face. 

And after she had completed the entire cup of instant ramen, she had tears running down her cheeks. 
It soon turned into an emotional breakdown. 

Heodia was about to do something but I stopped her. I leaned in and hugged her. After all, I was the same in the past. Someone that was alone all the time and had nothing but himself. 

"It's okay,"  I whispered as I stroked her hair. "Everything is okay now." 

And I don't know if this was caused by me, or her physical or mental fatigue, but she fell asleep soon after. 
I gently carried her to the bed and let her rest. 

"An emotional breakdown," Heodia said. 

"Yeah. Who knows what kind of trauma that child went through?" I replied. 

"But so, who is going to take care of her?" I then asked. 

"Isn't it obvious? It's going to be us." 

"Us?" 

"Yes. We are going to be taking care of her." 

"You joking?" 

"Not at all." Heodia answered. 

"Well I'm fine with it. So we are going to adopt her?" 

"Indeed." 

"Alright. Then we will need a name for her." 

"We'll decide on that later. For now, let us just nurse her back to health."  

"Agreed." 

And so we agreed to take care of her and when she becomes better, we'll adopt her. As we nursed her back to health over the hours of the day, the amount of artillery was consistent until it completely stopped. 

By then, I already had fallen asleep so Heodia had to (almost violently) wake me up to inform me of the news. 

"Void," she said. "Wake up. I got some intel you need to know." 

I just replied with like 'hmm?' or 'later...' with my voice fading away. 

And in turn, Heodia was forced to use 'better' options to wake me up. Thus causing back pain (to my already injured back) for a few days later on. 

And when I finally did wake up, it did not take long before I realised what is going on. I faced Heodia with a stern face and she explained the intel I needed to know.

"I just decoded a message from the soldiers of the Sagen Republic deployed on the city's gate sent to their HQ in Central." 

"Go on." 

"Right. This is what the message contained." Heodia said, handing me a piece of paper. 

I received it and had a skim read about the information. 

"Not so good is it?" she asked. 

"Yeah," I answered. "Not so good." 

And as she reported more information to me, I had a more detailed read of the paper. 

A coup d'etat planned by an unknown person? And what's more, is that all of the most influential and powerful people in the city are cooperating. Strange. Someone is pulling the strings here. 

"You know Heodia-" I started. 

"The coup d'etat planned and organised by an unknown person and has the cooperation of the city's most powerful people? Yes, I also believe someone is pulling the strings in the shadows here. Most likely the high command of the Cloud Empire." 

"Hm? The Cloud Empire? Why so?" I asked. 

"Well, first things first, they are the enemy of our country so that's a key point. And enemy could do whatever it can do to weaken the country they are attacking beforehand or during the attack. Another thing is that they have a history of doing this. Do you know the White Revolution?" 

"The White Revolution? Yeah, I do. The civil war between the Cloud Empire and the Pravlo Empire a few hundred years ago." 

"Okay, so the Pravlo Empire was much more powerful than the rebel group called the 'Dei' which was later known as the Cloud Empire when they won the civil war. But how did they do so? Simple. Weakening the Pravlo Empire politically through spies, puppet politicians, and many more examples." 

"Uh-huh." 

"So when the time came for the Pravlo Empire to give orders to its commanders of the army, naval and airforce, it was delayed and the time of the delays gave the upper hand to the Dai rebel forces which easily crushed the uncivilised nature of the Pravlo Empire's troops. And after a series of repeats, they lost basically all of their territories and were left with the modern borders today but had the control over the Hano and Juno states."  

"Hano and Juno states? Aren't they provinces?" 

"Well yes, in the past. During the past 300 years, they slowly became provinces." 

"Uhm. I see." 

"But anyway," Heodia said, walking over to the door. "We have to do something about this, don't we?" 

I sighed. I then looked at Heodia. 
"If I get killed, then it's all your fault." 

"Alright. I'll carry the burden of your death if you die." 

I laughed and went over to the sleeping girl. I gently carried her into my arms and walked to Heodia, who was already outside in the rubble-filled streets. 

...

Entanian HQ - Northern Front 

The sounds of boots echoed in the hallway. This was none other than Lieutenant General Vula. She walked with full confidence as she made her way to the Northern Front's general in command. She hummed the tune of a song she likes in a happy tone but everyone she had walked passed looked in fear. One even collapsed in fear. Vula wondered why everyone was so scared of her. She was only a Lieutenant General. The commander of the front was a general and the one above him is a Vice-Marshal, and the real commander of the front was a Marshal rank but he never does anything so the general gives out the orders. 

She turned to her guide who was walking behind her and asked him. 

"Hey. Why do you think that everyone is so scared of me? I mean I'm not all that powerful since there are 3 people or so here that have more power than me." 

The guide laughed nervously. 
"Well, Lieutenant General, rank in the Northern Front does not hold much power among the soldiers as there's many with the same rank but rumours and combat or skills are what soldiers would most likely fear." 

"Not rank but rumours, combat capability and skills instead hm. Interesting." 

Vula knew that she had some crazy rumours about her among the soldiers of both the UWC and the Entanian Alliance and even in her assigned divisions. One rumour about her spread so far and it was so famous that even the higher-ups of both parties of the war were informed about it.

She sighed, dismissed the thoughts from her head and continued walking to the general's office. 
When Vula finally reached the general's office, fear already made its way through all of the deployed soldiers at the HQ. But she didn't know about this yet. 

Anyway, Vula knocked on the door, and she was let in by the general's secretary. 

"Ah, welcome Liuentant General Vula. I was expecting your arrival." Said the general. 

"I thank you for your warm welcome general," Vula replied. 

In front of Vula was a giant man, probably standing 2.6 to 3 m sitting with tidy piles of paperwork on the desk. The man had grey hair and a bushy greyish beard. He had wrinkles all over his tanned face and Vula made the fact that the general was a very old person. 

As the greetings ended, Vula was making small talk with the general until someone interrupted them. 

"I do apologise for the interruption General and Lieutenant General. I received a report from the commander of the 30th attack force, Colonel Yaishki." said the man. "Shall I relay it out aloud?" 

"No. Bring it to me." the General answered. The man walked over to the general and gave him the tablet. He had a read of it and after he was done, he stomped his foot out of anger or frustration. 

"May I ask what's wrong?" Vula asked. 

"Ah. I think you are more than trustworthy to keep this a secret." the general replied. "Here. Give it a read and I want to hear your thoughts." 

He passed Vula the tablet and she had a read of it.

Colonel Yaishki reporting here. As per your careful planning and calculations, we suffered minimal losses during the initial attack. However, I'm afraid to say that the capture of Touimai would take another 6 or even up to 13 months judging from the current progress speed. For this reason, heavy resistance from the local population had made urban combat much more dangerous and deadly. We may have to call back up at this rate of falling soldiers. 

Signed Colonel Yaishki, Lieutenant Colonel Hari, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan 

Not so good. Civilian resistance is one of the many annoying things the invader must overcome. 
But so, Vula was surprised to see the name Yaishki. 

The general seemed to notice the look of surprise on Vula's face. 
"Anything that surprised you, Lieutenant General?" he asked. 

"No... not really," she replied. "I'm just surprised that my friend Yaishki is still a Colonel rank even after 20 years." 

"Ah. Well about him-" started the man who delivered the message. "I'm sorry to interrupt you." 

"No, no it's fine. Go ahead." Vula replied. 

"Thank you. I'm Major General Tegsa." he introduced. "About your friend, Yaishki still being a Colonel is mostly because he has now twice the work to deal with since he's also a Commander rank in the navy. I heard that he even commands 2 destroyers, ICN Gluten and ICN Aimo, of Gluten class destroyers. But I heard that while he doesn't command the other 6 destroyers part of the Gluten class personally he can command the entire class if needed. A major role for to a Commander rank." 

"Oh? Yaishki is a duel-ranker? Well, I might have expected that. But you say that he can command an entire class of destroyers if needed? Now that's something I didn't expect from him. Don't usually commander ranks only command one ship?" 

"Indeed, Lieutenant General." 

"Well, I can see Yaishki being given that responsibility." 

"I believe that he's actually at a higher rank like a Captain or a Commodore but since he's also in the army, he cannot be promoted since his army rank of Colonel takes up too much time and he cannot handle a higher responsibility than Commander rank if that makes sense." Major General Tesga said. 

"Yeah, I get the point of what you are trying to say." Vula replied. 

"Hmm. I do agree with your statement Major General." said the general. "But enough with this topic, let's talk about how to deal with the civilian resistance in Touimai. Take a seat, Major General." 

The general's secretary immediately brought in another chair from who knows where. The Major General sat down and the discussion began.  

The 3 of them talked about their brief plans on how to deal with the problem and it did take a while. But eventually, they decided to go with Vula's plan where she will lead the reinforcements of around 10,000 and all other duties will fall on Vula's shoulders. 

She joyfully left the room to gather the reinforcements and 3 days later, she gathered a reinforcement force numbering an unexpected 20,000. Double the planned amount. 

"Hey... Lieutenant General..." 

"Yes, General?" 

"You... didn't use any form of blackmail or anything like that to gather the troops did you?" 

"Nope. None at all," she answered. "It only took a few words from me and boom, 20,000 soldiers signed up for the reinforcement force. Though it took 3 days to get the paperwork in order." 

The general was obviously quite shocked. 
"Impressive I must say." 

"It's nothing really. Fear probably put them in line." Vula replied to the general. 

"Hm. Fear? It looks like using fear as a tool to get the soldiers in line may be quite useful. What do you think, Lieutenant General?" asked the general. 

The soldiers looked at each other knowing something bad will result from this, no doubt. 

Vula grinned at the general and he nodded. They had a laugh and the reinforcement force was deployed to Touimai within the next few hours. 
When the entire force arrived at the outskirts of the city, Vula took command from Yaishki after they had a good conversation between themselves. She first ordered the troops to get some rest and check their weapons for any damages or the like. 
She then ordered the tank and artillery divisions to stop bombarding the city and instead ordered them to be battle ready within the next few hours. 

And about the issue of urban warfare and the civilian resistance that the 3 of them talked about days earlier, there was another reason why they decided on Vula's plan. 

First of all, she was a great military commander, able to receive, think and give orders effectively, and secondly, she had some newly developed technology that needed to be tested in a real battleground. Combat Androids. 
She had 3,000 ready with another 7,000 being deployed to the city.

"Well, it's nearly time. I look forward to test the new combat androids' ability to fight, and respond to threats and their so-called 'adaptive learning'." Vula cheerfully said, sitting on a chair. "Well, Colonel, please have the troops ready in their battle formations." 

"Roger." 

Colonel Yaishki left the commander's tent and gave out her orders. 

"I can just smell the blood of this battle already. An event that will most likely go into the book of history. A bloody massacre indeed."