~Interstitial~

“Military secrets are the worst kept secrets in the world.”

Hegemonic Forces Command Red Fort Mohenjo-daro :

Commanding General Armed Forces Saanri Hoysala, originally of Karnataka district, was royally upset. Not because of incompetence, but rather the other way around. The Hegemony had come gallantly riding to the rescue of a relatively friendly and new Republic of Kazan with all of their social and educational preconceived notions fully intact. And it had cost them a great deal of coin both politically and emotionally. Their forces in-country had suffered an ever increasing casualty toll in what was looking to be a low intensity conflict.

“Low intensity. Hell if that isn't the biggest damn misnomer on the planet!” She winced with anger recalling another cargo carrier full of orange silk wrapped boxes of ashes coming home late the night before. She made it a point of honor to try and meet as many of those honor flights herself, and give a final salute to those who had given their all.

She lit a black oily looking cigar which produced clouds of foul smelling gray smoke, which she had pulled from her desktop humidor, the kind her troops called a "lunger" She only smoked them when she was upset or deep in thought. Which she absently acknowledged as a bad Fantul Stick gambling tell. Furiously she thought, “ What we thought we knew of Atlantis and her forces have come to bite us squarely on the ass. Our personal arrogance has led us down a dark alley where our preconceived notions have mugged us like a five rupee Goondah.”

She punched her communications display and waited patiently for the actual human informational briefing KMA or Kazan Military Assistance command had put together for her and her aides to review. Considering it was less than three days old, the data streams KMA provided in advance of her briefing on the right hand margin of the screen was fairly ugly.

“When Kali takes my soul and I go before Chitragupta, my sins of hubris will not be such that I have to go spend a thousand years in hell.” She thought to herself, as General Hoysala once more viewed the spartan briefing room in Maratha Base, Kazan.

One general officer and two officers of staff rank sat in a semicircular facing her.``General I am Brigadier Kumari Jha, KMA Maratha base commander. We have discovered something both illuminating and terrifying in its potential to both widen and possibly close our involvement in the conflict here in Kazan. It was stumbled upon quite literally by a corporal falling down a well from the 3rd Platoon of the 2/221 Combat Engineers. They mounted a rescue operation to find their missing corporal, assisted by elements of the 501st Khet Ke Choohe Military Intelligence detachment, after their Lieutenant realized the magnitude of what they had found. For the next portion of the briefing I will hand it over to my G-2.``

A slender officer with a prosthetic right arm stood up. Even over the communication interface, General Hoysala could hear her servos as she manipulated her arm, “Afternoon General, I am Lt Col. Chetana Kaif. I will demonstrate how the ORM and Atlantean forces have been able to pass undetected throughout most of Western Kazan.”

Lt Col Kaif, pressed a series of buttons on the display unit and a basic digital Ordnance Corps map appeared. Then a digital rendering of the geological features of Kazan settled over the display. “What you see before you is a basic, overlay of the geological substrate of Kazan. The Western half of the county is in essence a high desert biology, with the western most coastal region running to the sea as a wetland marsh. The entire country is ringed with mountains except to the west. A red highlighted digital pointer began scrolling across the face of the map, only to hit the mountainous eastern border, where they rolled back on themselves.

Lt Col Kaif continued, “The easternmost portion of the country has been uplifted by tectonic action into forming one of the world's largest plateaus. It is relatively flat, and covered in grasslands with alternating protruding hills of volcanic tuff. In the center portion of the eastern high ranges sits Makatul Volcano, which is thought to be a pressure release valve for the Oceanic Plate most of Kazan sits on being forced into the North-Western Continental plate. The tectonic forces have caused an uplifting of the plateau and an ever increasing rise in the surrounding mountain ranges. Both the surrounding mountain and the plateau collect massive amounts of water. Yet there is only one known lake which sits at the foothills of the Makatul Volcano. With the realization there are massive amounts of water falling into the greater Kazan basin, we wondered initially upon our deployment if all the water which accumulated sat in deep aquifers. This assumption was wrong. Mostly because we did not ask.”

A Lieutenant Colonel wearing the shoulder flash of the 221st Combat Engineering Battalion, stood up, and added to the conversation. “General, as you know my engineers quite literally stumbled into this discovery. The officers in the field, along with company commander of the 2nd Company Captain Pradesha Kandam have come up with a field expedient method of shutting down their access and at the same time allowing for the continued use of the water system."

The Lt Col, pressed a switch on her desk and a video window popped up showing troops using an armored excavator enlarging a wellhead, this was replaced with a scene showing her engineers lowering a galvanized metal culvert into the Kua't where it was lowered down and into the main water channel.

“Basically, what we do is expand the wellhead so we can lower down several three meter culverts. We fit them into the main channel, where we have already placed shape charges that drop the roof of the tunnel system down on top of the culverts. We have yet to experience any significant measurable amount of water reduction. But unless the Atlanteans or the ORM are recruiting rats, their days of being able to infiltrate into our areas of operation are going to be limited.”

“Good! Sounds like a very practical approach. Has there been any resistance or reaction from the ORM and or Atlanteans?”

Brigadier General Jha spoke up, “No. And that has us worried. According to the volume of chatter we were getting has dropped off to nothing. The White Mice discovered, most of our radio and data streams have been intercepted. They have had a major cyber warfare detachment operating in the province. We took steps in the last 48 hours and have changed out all of our encryption keys, changed our code books, and have begun a hard search through our databases for any viruses or infections. We discovered several caches of detection gear and some of the most sophisticated computer networks we or anyone else has found since the insurgency has begun. From our small pool of Human intelligence sources, they tell us the ORM has gone silent. Which to my way of thinking ma'am never bodes well. Just to give you some idea of what we are facing, here is an image of one of our drones sent back shortly before it was destroyed by automatic weapons fire.”

A grainy green tinged surveillance image flickered to life in the holograph tank. It showed three rail lines converging to a switch yard. There were overhead power conduits. Water pipes and what looked like old fashioned pneumatic messenger tubes, with industrial grade illumination globes spaced every ten meters in any direction the drone panned its recorder.

“The Gods and Goddesses in the eternal void!” General Saanri Hoysala all but shouted. “Is that by any chance a demon's damned narrow gauge rail line on the floor?”

“Yes ma'am it is. Scenes like this give me the cold sweats. MI command estimates the ORM and the Atlanteans have been laboring at this for a long time. Several years before the insurgency started. We even found a tunnel boring machine in a side drift on the northern half of the province parked at a rock face, with its engines still idling. With a system like this in place, they could move massive amounts of arms and munitions all over the countryside and we would never know it. We lost our drone and two troopers before we were able to blow this particular rail junction. We had to use an AX-65 Fuel Air munition to clear the ORM unit out of the switchyard pictured. They just didn't want to give it up.”

“Brigadier Jha do you have any estimates as to when or if, there might be an attack?”

“No Ma'am I do not. But my instinct tells me we can expect something at any time. What we are not hearing in the intelligence rat lines, radio and cellular intercepts, is any sort of “chatter.” According to our MI folks, this is really not looking good, either they have decided to use a new form of communication or they have figured out a way to work around our monitoring. I honestly think it is a combination of both. We have stepped up our patrols, doubled guards, and secured everything we can. We have purged Maratha Base and Deva Base of most of the local population doing our scut work. But we are stretched rather thin on the ground.”

“What can I do Brigadier Jha to help you in the immediate future?”

“Send us every single drone the Research Defense Force can summon up from their secret lairs. We need dust off a lot more of those antique passive seismic detectors we used during the Jandoor conflict, and as many of those spider drones they can make yesterday. I plan on using them to flood the countryside. My G-1 has sent a list of needed supplies. If you can get Log Command to expedite our needs, by any means... pack em in CC-41 Lizards and combat drop them to us at the airfield, if that will help speed things up. Plus one other consideration that needs examining. Our diplomats have scheduled a Durga with the Ourtai, hoping to pave a way for a ceasefire. I don’t think this is a good idea in light of what we have found.”

With a voice which hesitated for a moment as if, the admittance of failure was less than the dishonor of not acknowledging a weakness not addressed Brigadier Jha continued, “Also I think, we need to add more theater assets to the equation. If there are any Kartikeya class cruisers available or even a Carrier Task Force floating around needing gainful employment? We would have plenty of opportunities for them to flex their muscles. Those assets would help a lot. I would rather call for help and not need it ma'am then for it to arrive a rupee short and a day late.”

General Hoysala just grunted in acknowledgment. “I understand Brigadier Jha, you are not an alarmist. And I also understand this changes the very nature of the conflict we have entered into. We will have to change and adapt. I just hope those back alley money lenders understand this! Please continue. I also know for a fact, the Matrons will not budge from having attempted the meeting with the Ourtai. That’s a non-starter right there. Which can have all of our chuddies hanging around our ankles.”

Brigadier Jha, paused for a moment reviewing her list, scrolling through a cascading file on her slate, she found a key point and spoke up, “As a last note, we also have the heir to the Kapoor clan with us. She was the one who actually came up with the method we are using to plug up the Kua't system. At her suggestion, I would ask you to make a formal request from her Aunt Anushka who manages the family's KHD Corporation. They have nearby assets from Kapoor Heavy Industry's oil and gas exploration division working out of the Gulf of Kron we could airlift over here in less than three days.

“Did she explain how these “assets” are employed?”

“Yes ma'am she did. Basically they operate in groups of four. One truck has an overly large steel plate, with which is spring loaded called a “thumper.” It strikes the ground and sends out a shock wave. The other three trucks have seismic listening equipment. They monitor the propagation rate of the sound wave the “thumper” generates and they can then accurately map the substrata below them. It would really go a long way to helping us find where these bastards are hiding. We could use a minimum of one or two Shikari as guards, or even replace the operators with engineers. Apparently it is a rather easy process to operate. Lt Kapoor informed me the biggest issue is falling asleep at the wheel. As it is now, even with drone support we are having to send out sappers and engineers into a blind situation, and I am losing too many good women for this to continue.”

General Hoysala's Karnataka accent which always flavored her voice with a soft “brrrr” on the end of her words became much more pronounced as she had one of her aides pull up several screens showing Hegemonic deployment of forces, “Brigadier an interesting thing has developed once more down in the Satrapy of Sind. The border region at Malkangiri district has once more flashed over, and the “Sacks” are conducting a three divisional exercise right now. I have had to shift a 7th brigade's armour and infantry there. We also moved CTF Jindal under command of Admiral Padukone into the southern sea of storms. Which in light of the recent events, makes me think we are dealing with traditional Atlantean technique of misdirection.”

She leaned back in her chair for a moment, then looked at her officers sitting around their tank display, and sighed, “I have another battlefield I need to visit today as well. Probably one of the more important ones. I have to talk to Matron Kadesh of the Budget Oversight Committee. She has been systematically paring down our budget, as if we live in a world where wishes and good intentions will make for a safer world... If I can convince her of the importance of this new direction we are facing, I am going to activate the 27th Shikari Light Infantry, both motorcycle mounted and leg infantry types. I can get those airlifts started tomorrow. I will probably have to activate several reserve battalions of self propelled artillery and armor. But that is only if I can get the funds to do so. And if I do, KMA Command, those heavies are at least two weeks off in getting loaded and having their military trains make it through Jengdai pass.”

Just as General Saanri Hoysala was about to close out the briefing, Command Sgt Major, Chandor stood up and with a voice which sounded like it was full of barbed wire and gravel, “General ma'am, they have twigged to us discovering their rabbit hole. Whatever resources they have with them is it. They are at the use it or lose it point in the game, my guts are telling me we are not going to have much time before something happens.” With a determined look on her face, Command SergeantMaj Chandor glared at the commanding general of all Hegemonic forces.

“Thank you SgtMajor. Excellent point. One with which I agree and I will express to the Matrons personally.” The meeting ended with the General thanking all the in-country officers for their presentation.

General Saanri Hoysala sat and ruminated through one more cigar. She came to a decision, and pressed her communication console which summoned her staff.

Five minutes later they had all assembled, “Ladies, we have a fusion bomb kind of situation on our hands. If we look at it wrong or crack the containment bottle, then we are going to have shit all over our faces. So spin up the order machine. I want every air mobile unit, even if it is a national militia force, to send warning orders for a rapid deployment in the next 48 hours. We are going to report mechanical failures in the TCF Openly in the clear. I want people to know something has gone wrong with the Task Force. Then get Admiral Padukone to turn her ships around right now. Five minutes ago I wanted her and her ships out of the Sea of Storms. I want them to lie off the coast of Kazan beyond visual range in a hull down position. I want her and her Aircraft and Marine Expeditionary troops in a full communications black out -full war protocols. If they can find a hole in the ocean to hide all the better. But I want it known I want her and her equipment where they can come running at a moment's notice.”

The staff began dictating into various communication devices, while several were also furiously typing away at data nodules in secure stations along the General's office walls.

“Fuck the bean counters! Get those Shiva Main Battle Tanks on the rails and rolling to Kazan. Do you hear me ladies? I want the whole damn deploy-able mob spun up. I don't care if we have to rob the retirement money from the entire Hegemony to pay for this. My gut is telling me shit is about to go sideways and unless we act upon it, we are all going to be eating a Chapati slathered and covered in it!

****

Somewhere in Eastern Kazan...

Corporal Vendakkatoru woke up and every fiber of her being hurt. The interrogators beat on her just to beat on her. They didn't ask any questions. They just hit her with their palms and soft leather bags filled with shotgun pellets. She passed out again and the next time she came to she found herself sitting strapped to a wooden chair, with a large man with glaring eyes and a green beard, speaking in Atlantean who was pulling a large hypodermic needle out of her arm.

A tall man stalked into the dirt cave, a stone cell they were keeping her. All she knew was she was underground. This man exuded an air of evil competence which was of the type of person, who didn't have an issue killing those who didn't obey him instantly. He grabbed the back of her head where her hair hung in a long braid, wrenching her head around and said, in a thick accent, “Our adviser tells us you are worthless. You know nothing. But you are not worthless. No. Not worthless at all. You shall be a gift to Halalezik. You shall feed the messenger of our God Makatul!”

Two burly men walked into her cell untied her arms from the chair, and then bound them behind her back. Placing a rope around her neck, they dragged her staggering behind into the vast underground Kua't system where she had been captured.