The group of almost forty high-quality tars Selphira had brought was exceptional in terms of individual capability. Each one trained and experienced. Each one worth ten normal soldiers in combat.
But they couldn't cover the complete open area and underground that the flow exploited.
The math was impossible and cruel... Forty defenders spread across kiloters of frontage ant gaps. ant hundreds of mutants slipping through regardless of how efficiently defenders fought. ant failure not through lack of skill but through insufficient coverage.
Hundreds of mutants entered the city through a breach they couldn't close. Massive infiltration that would have resulted in massacre of defenseless civilians under normal circumstances.
And all Selphira and Arturo could do was observe with growing horror while containnt failure unfolded despite their best efforts.
They killed dozens... Then hundreds. Their beasts were effective. But for every mutant they eliminated, three more passed around them. The flow was simply too broad and too sustained to stop with available forces.
The enemy soldiers now watched from a safe distance near the ruin's entrance.
Most waiting and observing how Selphira and Arturo tried with a few of their own to stop the flow but only tired themselves more in attempts that were futile from the beginning.
They didn't intervene to help. Didn't celebrate the success of the strategy their leaders had executed. Just watched with expressions varying widely depending on family affiliation.
Many soldiers looked with disdain because they knew their families wouldn't be affected by location. And because they'd been explained before how the "new technology" recovered and improved from Yino functioned.
These were the loyalists. True believers in Orion's group or at least committed enough to the rebellion that unknown civilian casualties didn't matter if they served a larger purpose. They watched the mutant invasion with satisfaction. Proof that plan was working. Proof that Selphira's and Arturo's authority was insufficient to prevent catastrophes.
Many other lower-rank soldiers looked with deep sadness as mutants invaded the city they belonged to. Places where their families lived and where they'd grown before being forced to join military forces.
These were conscripts... People who'd had no choice about serving, who'd been told to fight for a cause they didn't necessarily believe in. Now they watched their city being invaded and could do nothing without inviting execution.
So more attempted deserting. Breaking discipline driven by desperate need to protect their loved ones in direct danger.
But they were also eliminated by their leaders without hesitation or rcy.
Summary executions communicating that betraying the rebel faction was punished with imdiate death. Warning making others contemplating similar action reconsider and remain in their assigned positions.
The other soldiers stopped trying to help or desert finally at a certain point. Defeated acceptance that there was no option that would be not resulting in terrible consequences one way or another.
A few more managed escaping by exploiting chaos to slip between lines. Running toward the city with hope of reaching their families before the mutants did.
And what those few who escaped found when they reached more internal parts of the city was... confusion mixed with massive relief.
The mutants hadn't attacked the civilian population.
Weren't massacring defenseless residents, weren't destroying structures and weren't causing chaos that invasion of this scale should inevitably produce.
Instead, after penetrating approximately three kiloters into semi-urban territory, they'd gone underground again. Excavation carrying them deeper toward a destination that perhaps wasn't the city itself.
Extraordinary luck? Or sothing more deliberate in how they were being directed?
What was a trendous relief for several soldiers who'd managed to escape to protect their families was simultaneously the battle Ren and the academy students were facing several hundred kiloters away.
Because the mutants hadn't dispersed randomly but had converged specifically toward the educational installation. Targeting that wasn't coincidence but execution of a plan soone had carefully orchestrated.
The connection between the breach Selphira couldn't close and the attack the academy suffered wasn't obvious to those in the middle of events. Couldn't be seen when you were fighting for survival or desperately searching for family mbers in chaos.
But it was terribly clear for anyone who could observe the complete situation from an elevated perspective revealing patterns rather than just local chaos.
Draw the massive force away from the objective toward the city. Forced that force to spread thin trying to protect civilians. Created a gap in containnt through sheer volu. Then redirect the breakthrough underground toward the real target that now has insufficient defenders because the best tars were kiloters away dealing with a diversion.
Classic military deception.
And Selphira had fallen for it completely. Not through incompetence but through having no good alternative. She couldn't let mutants massacre civilians just to keep her position against rebels. Her values wouldn't permit it… And Orion had known that.
♢♢♢♢
Orion found himself in a wide chamber of the ruin that had been his base of operations during the last weeks.
Seven crystals floated and danced around him in complex orbits requiring constant attention but that he'd practiced until control was almost subconscious. Automaticity freeing his mind slightly to process broader strategic aspects of the situation.
Each crystal connected to a different subset of mutants. Each one transmitting signals that guided corrupt creatures along predetermined paths. Together they created a network of control spanning kiloters of territory and directing thousands of individual beasts.
He smiled while processing the information flowing through connections that the crystals linked to that great purple brain provided. Data about mutant positions and their movents through vast territory.
The smile wasn't a pleasant one. It was an expression of satisfaction bordering on smugness. Everything was proceeding according to plan and all the pieces were moving exactly as he'd calculated. Opposition was reacting predictably to stimuli he'd created.
And while observing the developnt of a plan he'd invested years building, he thought about how everything preceding it had finally borne fruit.
Not victory he'd achieved alone. Not success coming from individual brilliance only. It was the culmination of many people's work. Efforts of those who'd co before and who'd established foundations upon which he now built.
User Comments
0 comments from readers