The World of The Gunny

Gaiven waited alone on the flag bridge for the communication links with the Lerviathone to finishtheir connections. This was not a report he was looking forward to. He had managed to get almost a full division worth of troops off of Rigel, but that was only in numbers. He had bits and pieces of battalions from no fewer then five Naff'Bei divisions. Such high losses would have normally meant that those divisions would have been dissolved and folded into other divisions and battalions to replace their losses. Losing an average of four out of five of your personnel normally counted as destroyed by most orders. Including his own.

But these troops were the survivors of a fight that had been more one sided then what he could still think about. They had acquired experience that was unique in living memory. The units had survived a killing field that had been unprecedented in history. Or at least any history that Gaiven knew of.

His master, on the other hand, had spent much of his life searching through the deep records and could quote strategies from many of the previous Great Wars.

Gaiven could not wrap his mind around the scale of the defeat, but he somehow suspected that Aerobhin had seen it coming, if not quite on this scale. More then eighty divisions wiped out with no reports of survivors. It was a staggering number. Almost ten percent of the ground forces in their entirety had been destroyed in only a few days fighting. That did not even count the losses sustained during the landing assault!

He sighed. For all intents and purposes the available Aero'Bei assault forces were now nonexistent. It would take them months to activate new units and he suspected that their reserves were not enough to replace losses.

Damn bud, that is pretty good!



Cheers, Thor

A quiet blip sounded. It was the five second warning. He moved to in front of the primary strategic holo projector and went to one knee with his head bowed towards the floor. His shame would would not permit him to meet his teacher eye to eye.

The darkened room lit with the light flare of the projector. "Report, Landarosian Gaiven."

His teachers voice almost... he couldn't quite get it. Perhaps gentle? Did he somehow know already? "Lasoain'Damen, we have failed in every objective upon the surface of Rigel and have left the terrans mastery of it. I managed a fighting withdrawal and the succor of one divisions worth of mixed troops... " he took a deep breathe. "out of more then eighty divisions." He closed his eyes and awaited the Lasoain'Damen's judgement. Seconds ticked by as silence seemed to spread outwards from the projector. He could almost feel the condemnation from his teacher filling the room The silence continued and his heart, already heavy, began to feel like it was tearing a hole in his chest.

*****

Aerobhin looked into projector and saw his student. Every nuance of Gaiven's posture spoke of confusion, shame, and worst of all, defeat. He had expected high losses, but the total loss of almost ten percent of the Commonwealth's deployable ground assets was... unanticipated. The council would have to be calmed and rienforcements brought in. Many of them would have to be from the smaller orders. Even the Naff'Bei did not have enough available divisions to remake the army on its own.

"Landarosian Gaiven, you are assigned control of the Rigel system. Replacement troops are enroute as we speak. You may retain one quarter of your experienced troops for insertion into your new divisions for seasoning purposes. The rest will return with the wounded for balreia at Saigon. The transmission of their experiences cannot be underestimated. I need them to enforceour planned training changes."

"Lasoain'Damen, after my failure you woul..;"

Aerobhin cut him off with the first signs of irritationin his voice, causing Gaiven to look up in startlment. "Shaepei! You will not diminish your actions to me. You are the only commander among many with the presence of mind to save your troops and not throw them away in useless battle."

"Teacher, my duty!", said Gaiven, the anguish clear in his voice.

"Is to your troops and to Numeria. By the Dream! Gaiven you fought a fighting withdrawl and broke contact long enough to evacuate with standard cargo shuttles! Name me any living commander who has done this! Because of you we have a division that will willingly learn the old ways and return to fight again and that is no small accomplishment. You retreated in the face of superior forces using the elder tactics that the Dream has been reminding us to use. Not one unit using the tactics that they have been trained in made it back to the landing zones, did they?"

"No, Lasoain'Damen. They did not." Gaiven's guilt began to let go as he realized he had done far more good then ill in the past few days. Perhaps, just perhaps he had served Numeria far better then he had shamed her?

Very good bud! Not exactly how I would have put it, but outstanding none-the-less.



Cheers, Thor