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The Battle of Genorgen (revised and updated)

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sisko:
Commander Brown of the Peacekeepers surveyed the field. It was a brownish hill to his north, with flat lands immediately near it and a gently rolling terrain surrounding the flat area. A good site for a battle, he thought. He recalled how in the days long past armies would seek a decisive engagement to destroy the enemy army once and for all. This was because there weren’t enough troops to garrison the entire front. A similar situation had developed on Alpha Centauri, with man-labor so precious, as few people as possible were used in the army so they could work or research things. This was less of a problem now, 85 years after landing, but still a problem. Thinking of problems, that reminded him of the biggest problems, the Spartan army, camped somewhere north in the hills beyond. They knew it was there, but with stealth emissions and other devices, not to mention the terrain which allowed them to camp in a forested valley, the best way to spot them short of a satellite was to get direct visual contact. He knew that they were probably staying just out of their artillery range, too. That gave a nice, neat circle outside of which to examine on the charts. But the Spartans had gained a reputation for being unconventional in their other wars. So Brown wanted to be ready for whatever they might throw at him.
Normally not a faction to involve itself in wars, the Peacekeepers knew that the Spartans had to be stopped for the survival of their faction. There were barely any free Gaians left, and the Morgan Conglomerate had lost half their territory before suing for peace. But for every faction to leave the fight, a new one stepped in. The University of Planet was at war with the Spartans as well, but since their island home was not under direct attack, they seemed to content themselves with nipping at their heels here and there, instead of helping the ground effort. And right now was going to be the turning point for the Eastern campaign. Having turned their fury from the MC to the Peacekeepers, the majority of Spartan Army East was here. Not that it was that big- the Spartans had done remarkably well with a comparatively small army. Their first target had been the Gaians, where they literally sneaked an entire army into their territory before they realized what was going on. By the time the Gaians started raising any forces above police needed for civil order they had lost their capital and half their territory. As for the MC, when they were attacked, they actually had a stronger army than the Spartans. But by concentrating their forces, and due to the spread out nature of the MC’s Army, they achieved regional numbers superiority every time. Add to that their experienced battlefield commanders, and the Conglomerate soon agreed to pay a 10% tribute to the Spartans for a reprieve.

And now it was the Peacekeeper’s turn to write the next chapter. A few unimportant bases had been lost, but here the resistance stiffened, and the plan for a counter attack came to be. If the Spartans could be defeated here before reinforcements came, they could run and take back most of the conquered MC territory, as the Peacekeepers had the larger army here. More importantly, they could take the port of Hamman near Morgan Robotics, which would prevent easy shipping of reinforcements. The Spartan Eastern campaign would come to a crashing close. But if they failed- oh, Brown didn’t want to think of that. They had stripped units from every garrison to make this army- they were leaving their homelands naked and exposed should they lose.

A message crackled through his headset. "We’ve found them!" said the excited commander of the scout speeders. He proceeded to radio in the coordinates.

Brown examined the detailed map of the area, laid out on the table inside the tent. The location was a swampy valley with only 1 point of entry- to the south. Where the Peacekeepers were camped.

"Brilliant," he thought. "They’d be slaughtered if they tried to fight from there, due to the low ground and 1 point of escape, but they are nearly undetectable if you don’t look carefully. And they thought we wouldn’t bother checking there because of its useless tactical value. Well, we’ll make ‘em pay for that mistake boys. Get the army ready to move!"

They were already on a general alert, ready to move at any time, so in less than 2 minutes each company had reported in as ready. The artillery was already moving to the hill to the north so it could start tormenting the Spartans with a barrage of shells to weaken them up. The tanks and hover vehicles started moving out, with the infantry in armored troop carriers trailing close behind. Meanwhile, back at Mount Vyot base, the fighters scrambled as they prepared to strafe the enemy troops and shoot some missiles at them.

BOOM! BOOM! The noise was deafening, but superior technology had its price. The Peacekeepers were confident that their artillery was better than the Spartans, with longer range. The speeders were reporting no return artillery fire, nor any return fire yet. Due to their superior speed their orders were to seal up the exit to the valley and wait for the support to come in.

Brown continued waiting for the other shoe to drop. What were the Spartans doing?
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Brown was now very suspicious. He ordered the artillery to stop and for the moment, and he asked the scout commander to go directly into the Spartan encampment to investigate. Meanwhile, he ordered his battle staff to move forward onto the hill with the artillery. He stayed behind, though, for the moment. It turned out that that may have saved his life.

Brown heard a faint rumble, and all of the sudden his artillery were getting hit by shells! This could only mean one thing- the Spartans had plotted the location of the artillery from the previous blasts and now had trained their sights on it.

"Trace that!" he screamed, even though people were already at work plotting the location of the Spartan batteries. He called up the scout commander. "What's down there? The Spartans? Why aren't they doing anything?"

The reply sickened him. "They aren't doing anything, sir. I think these are just holograms. I can have confirmation in..."

"Are you getting fired at?" Brown interrupted.

"No, I'm not sir. I still haven't found a holographic emitter yet..."

"It has to be. Thank you, please return to your regiment now."

His artillery commander ran up to him now.

"The good news is that we have a rough location of the Spartan batteries. They're to the northwest, somewhere in this area," circling a portion of the map. "The bad news is that we've lost half our pieces. If the grunts don't take that artillery out seen, there won't be much of us left."

Brown didn't hesitate. He ordered his staff to start giving the orders for all vehicles to move to that area at top speed and watch out for Spartan infantry. Despite their reduced numbers, the staff performed admirably, constantly talking with the commanders in the field giving orders quickly and efficiently.

Brown looked a his laptop computer's estimation of where each regiment was. It worried him that due to the differing speeds of his units, and the bottlenecking nature of the terrain, they were spreading out into a long line. "We should've chosen a better place for a battle," he thought. "In a wide open field superior numbers will almost always win. In these tight passages a small fortified army can."

He started ordering his far ahead speeders to pull back and support the slow infantry vehicles coming up, in case of Spartan counterattack. The fact that the artillery will have to survive a little longer without the enemy's artillery under attack was less of an issue.

This was getting really tense for Brown now. It seemed like hours had passed with no word on the Spartan army, other than the artillery- no infantry, no tanks, no helicopters, no nothing. Helicopters, he thought. Where's my air support??

He ran off to find his Air Defense Officer. Nowhere to be found. If those planes were here, they could've smashed those hidden artillery batteries that were destroying his artillery. "Where are my planes?? He ran and asked everyone where they had last seen the ADO. Apparently, he seemed to disappear right after the battle staff was moving up onto the hill with the artillery, but before the enemy artillery attacked the hill. "Well, he might have been killed in the artillery barrage then," Brown thought. He decided to get online with Mt. Vyot base.

"What happened to the planes you sent?" Brown screamed.

"Um, they were recalled to base- remember, you didn't need them any more, right?

"WHAT?? Get those planes coming back here again, NOW! And who gave the order to abort?"

"That'll take time, sir- they're just coming back now, and they have to refuel. The Air Defense Officer told us to abort."

Brown called up the capital and told them to immediately arrest the family of the traitor, if they were still around. This battle was getting tougher by the second, but he was still confident he could win. Hopefully.
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*To be continued- just like the Arabian Nights, we’ll do half of this story, and we’ll do the last part next month along with the first half of a new story. Hopefully.

This was written way back in the Chronicles of Future History Forum (also known as The SMAC Fiction forum), when less was known about SMAC. Fortunately, its author (snowball56) saved it from the flames and is now reprinted here for your viewing displeasure, er I mean pleasure.

(click to show/hide)I'd also like to add a plug for the Chronicles of Pre-Unity and Beyond; they are the current succesor to the CoFH and we can always use new writers. We are just about to land on Chiron, which is a great oppurtunity for you to introduce a new character. Go to the SMAC forums and, more specifically, the SMAC Fiction section, and read the Chronicles of Pre-Unity and Beyond for an overview of what's happening. To understand better what is happening, set your browser to search back 20 or 30 days and read "Chronicles of Pre-Unity Parts 1 and 2," a compilation of all the CPUB so far.
source: "The Mindworm" website (now down)

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