“The fickle finger of fate will give you the high hard one every single damn time.”

-Kshatriya Military Academy precepts for new officers.

Chapter Six

* Breaking News... * BREAKING NEWS...* Breaking News... *

A statuesque brunette woman with large brown eyes and a warm smile which had endeared her to millions of viewers came on the air. Her normally calm face, registered fatigue and the worrying look of someone who has just had horrible news placed in their lap. She clears her throat, shuffles through a sheaf of papers and lifts her head

“Good morning, this is Mahinder Hamal, We here at Hegemonic News Network have just had word from our reporter Priya Desai in the Republic of Kazan a state of emergency if not outright war has erupted at this late hour. Information is minimal at this time. As of earlier this week, the Republic of Kazan had asked for a “Jirga” or a convocation of the Ourtai Clan leaders to meet in the capital city of Astania. It seems our earlier reports of those leaders and their clans flocking in large numbers have been in error. What we are finding out at this early hour, is that the Khans, and the IlKhan or Chief Khan of the Khans, have used this call for peace talks as a ruse to bring in armed combatants into the city. We are getting scattered reports of bombings, shootings in the capital city and most of the major population centers in Kazan. Luckily for us, Priya Desai, our reporter in the capital has alerted us to what is going on..”

A young woman appeared on the screen with a very concerned look upon her face, as the crackling of small arms fire could be heard in the distance, punctuated by soft booming noises of explosives going off.

“Priya, can you hear me?”

“Yes I can Mahinder.”

“First off are you and your camera crew safe?”

“For now we are. However, with the amount of fighting which has broken out in the last hour and a half, we don't know how long we will be able to stay at this location.”

“Where are you currently reporting from?”

“Mahinder we have managed to have a remote camera on the roof of the Boram Towers overlooking the racetrack where the peace talks were to occur later this morning. We are currently talking to you from the patio of my rooms several floors below. The racetrack has been a hub of activity all week. We will pan our camera over, and as you can see the place is deserted. All of the colorful tents with their clan symbols and flags are either down or missing.”

“What exactly do you know at this time?”

“As of two full hours ago, The Kazan Military Assistance command along with units of the Hegemonic Military located at Maratha Base have come under attack. :: The camera pans over to the base showing explosions, with brilliant streaks of light from the contrails of large rockets and their smaller brethren, shoulder fired rocket propelled grenades ::

“Mahinder if you look at the western most edge of the airfield, you can see what looks to be the burning wreck of a Hegemony VTOL burning on one of the taxi lanes. We watched it attempt to take off a few moments ago, and some sort of Surface to Air missile arched out from the perimeter to strike it down. Roll footage.”

:: A bright arc of light moving almost too fast for the human eye to track, shot out of the shadows outside the perimeter fence of Maratha Base striking the VTOL just behind the cockpit nacelle, causing the entire aircraft to pancake down on the tarmac with a bright explosion of fuel and ordinance::

The scene cuts to the worried face of Priya Desai, as she hunches down behind the mattress of her hotel room. “We have taken our bedding and placed it up against the windows to help prevent someone seeing us. Our camera woman Miti is up on the roof running the feed you see of Maratha Base. Wait! Wait one moment.”

The young reporter touched her ear piece and held up a finger as she listened to the message. “I am getting a report from our local fixer Hegan, the Ourtai Resistance Movement are killing local officials, and rounding up people while they drive those hostages towards Maratha Base using them as human shields.”

“Priya, regardless of the story you need to get your people to a safe location! Time to leave.”

“I think you are..”

BOOM!-An explosion rocked the hotel where Priya Desai and her crew are reporting from. The screen wobbled and in the background her reporter's audio pickup fed the sounds of screams and cursing, then the satellite signal died.

Gathering her composure as best she could, “May the Goddesses and Gods protect our brave reporter and our forces currently under attack in the Republic of Kazan. We will continue coverage of this crisis as events evolve. Next we go to Hegemonic Command at the Red Fort...

****

Mohenjo-daro Military Quarters:

The communication console next to her bed began beeping insistently. General Hoysala ignored it, slapping at it like a truculent alarm clock misbehaving. But it kept beeping. Then her wrist chronograph sent an electric nerve induction signal which rocketed her right out of the bed, leaving her sore and shaking. (It was only programmed to do this in extreme circumstances.)

“Holy Goddess in the Void!” she said aloud as she rubbed her wrist, and tried to come to some sort of awake state...

No sooner had she started to move, then her aide, Command Sergeant Major Wali Drona came walking through her door into her bedroom. “Good you are vertical. The feces has hit the rotating oscillator in Kazan. We have a live feed coming through from HNN.” The Sergeant Major walked over to a control unit and the entire south facing wall of Hoysala apartment became a video wall, showing images coming from Kazan. General Hoysala could see coordinated rocket and mortar attacks impacting Maratha Base.

“Have you been able to raise KMA Command yet?”

“No General we have not. I talked to the girls over at Orbital Command. Seems our two Satellites went dark a few moments ago. Communication with the base went dark at the same time.”

“Shit! Double Shit!” She paused for a moment watching sporadic fire fights breaking out all over the city as the camerawoman did a slow revolving pan shot of the city of Astania. Sergeant Major, how are we getting these images then?”

Apparently the Atlanteans thought a commercial Satellite wasn't worth a missile. Or maybe the murdering bastards wanted us to watch them take Kazan and bring it back under the yoke of slavery. I don't know. Maybe it is both. But for now, HNN still has their feeds up.”

“Can we hack their signal or ask them to cooperate with them to use their links to talk to our girls?”

“Yes ma'am, I believe we can. I sent a runner over to their studios as soon as I saw this. Might take some tinkering and their willingness, but I am relatively confident we can Jugaad some sort of abortion together.”

“Can we still talk to the fleet? Can we get a message to CTF Jindal?”

Pausing for a moment to collect her thoughts and take a deep breath Sergeant Major Drona replied, “Honestly ma'am I don't know. I haven't had time to think about that.”

“Then we had better get to Plans and Operations. It's crap like this that means we have to earn the rupees they pay us.”

“Yes ma'am. It's a bull buffalo pissing on a flat rock. Everyone is going to get wet over this one.”