The occupied Territories, Maramanakama.

Galiupus 10th , 19:07 Local time.

Margeau Songbird considered herself to be a person that has had up until this point, a long and distinguished career as a reporter. She had done a lot of things that she considered degrading and embarra.s.sing for the sake of her career.

Telemarketing, false advertis.e.m.e.nt, tabloid news, covering celebrity bashes, even gossip columns and although she considered her stint on tabloids to be the worst of the lot, working for the government was a close second. That fact was proven true, by the person who was sitting at the desk in front of her, surrounded by two of his cronies, namely Prince Gelios, General Bartholomew and his personal a.s.sistant Discanula, though Margeau was certain that the woman also doubled as the prince’s mistress.

“We have reserved airtime on all major farview channels and we’re ready to transmit the parade to the entire Maran nation across all of their systems. I have camera crews ready for every ten miles of the march, we’ve been advertising it daily on every available channel for the past several days and we also have orbiting news s.h.i.+ps to cover the fleet’s progress.” Margeau said to the prince as she looked at his features, she had to admit he was handsome in his second form, chiseled jaw, blond short cut hair and beautiful black eyes.

 Not much of a leader, but he had a promising career as a Speedo model if things went bust for him.

“You’ve done a great job miss Songbird and on such short notice too! Tell me, how did you managed to do all this?”

“You’re highness, we at the News Channel always have plans prepared for official events such as weddings, parades, public announcements and so forth.” she replied.

“You also had a mourning broadcast for the troops who died in Dukhym; it’s almost like you knew how that would end.” Bartolommeo asks accusingly of Margeau, as he glared at her.

“We also have prerecorded broadcasts at the ready, for both cases of national sadness and joy, it would be unprofessional and also disrespectful to our dead martyrs and our living heroes if we didn’t.” she replied nonphased by the accusation and glared back at Bartolommeo at his bulldog-like face with brownish yellow skin and single monocle on the left eye , who gave back a slight sneer while puffing his chest, which was so covered in medals that it was distasteful.

“So, you have news coverages prepared for everything? Well, that’s very impressive; it’ll like to have someone like you on my staff. How about it, will you join?” Gelios asked and gave an alluring and almost hypnotic smile at Margeau and her simian features.

 She was in her first form, and her species the Cacapeoiu had a humanoid body structure, with ape like features, namely a face like a chimpanzee, fur all over their bodies of a rusty reddish color.

She was wearing a black business suite and pointy gala shoes, along with a grey vest beneath her suit jacket and a dark green tie.

“I’m honored and I gladly accept, your highness.”

‘Which really means kriff you, you piece of crud! Who do you think I am, your personal peanut gallery dancer?’ Miss Songbird thought to herself.

“Splendid! I’ll talk to your boss right away and settle all the paperwork, welcome aboard Miss Songbird!” Gelios said and got up from his desk and extended his hand for her to shake.

“Glad to be aboard you’re Highness.” she replied most insincerely, shook his hand and with a curt bow of the head she left the room.

“My lord, do you think this parade is wise?” Bartolommeo asked, right after Margeau left.

“We need to show our strength, we must remind the civilians that here, in the Planetary Capital of the Prime System of the Maran nation, we are in complete control and that a few hundred deaths while a tragedy, changes nothing.” Gelios replied.

“Yes my lord, but the parade route is through the thick forest to the north, which is teaming with rebel activity, our forces could be ambushed!”

“They could, but they won’t be. We are moving a ma.s.sive force of 100 thousand infantry, along with 40.000 chariots, 80.000 light vehicles and artillery pieces and we’ll have s.p.a.ce and air cover by over 1.000 s.h.i.+ps in orbit, this force is simply too great for any rebel army on the planet to ambush and think that they can survive; why what general would use such tactics?”

“My Prince, I can tell you from my experience during the war in which we conquered the Marans that I am pretty confident on just what kind of tactics their generals would use.” Bartolommeo replied grimly, disgust evident in his voice. As a soldier he was glad when the enemy made mistakes and died, but he personally loathed the generals who led those brave soldiers to their death, out of sheer lunacy and stupidity and worse of all those who where indifferent to the fate of their troops. In his eyes they would forever be sc.u.m and his eternal enemy, be they allied or foe.

“That’s also a reason for this parade, since we will be pa.s.sing trough enemy territory, they will either have to avoid attacking us and therefore seem like cowards to their allies and soldiers or attack us and suffer heavy casualties.”

“Yes sir, but it’s very bad ground, that forest is muddy and the undergrowth is thick, couldn’t we send some black berets ahead of time, to scout the jungle and act as anti-guerilla units, or at least divide our forces into parallel columns, so it would be easier to fight and deploy.” he pleaded.

“No General, that would make us look like we actually consider the terrorists a legitimate threat and we must never show that, I know you Carunians are very cautious by nature, but you worry too much.”

“But sir!”

“Good day General, I’ll see you at the parade.” Gelios cut him off and gestured towards the door; Bartolommeo reluctantly gave a salute and left the office.

Once outside, he leaned against it and let out a sigh of exasperation, disappointment and off just plain mental and physical exhaustion.

 “He does have a point about keeping appearances, but that and doing things that any freshman cadet can see is a mistake are two different things!”

“By all Saints and Sinners, how did I end up like this? A lifetime of fighting and killing, of protecting the Empire and cutting down our foes, and this is my reward? To play babysitter to a Prince who won’t even listen to my advice!?”

“I failed those poor souls in Dukhym and now there’s going to be more unnecessary deaths in this march, all of which could be avoided!” Bartolommeo thought to himself as he left the wall and walked to his own office.

 All the while anger and sadness raged inside him, for he knew that he was close enough to power to potentially have the means to protect his soldiers from unnecessary danger and potential death, but they were just out of his reach………they always where, just out of his reach.

“d.a.m.n him! d.a.m.n the fool for wasting lives without a care! d.a.m.n Dukhym and this parade, and d.a.m.n us for coming to this G.o.dless land where only death is here to great us! d.a.m.n this Nightmare!”

Volunian system 378th corps, Federal Supply base.

“Maybe, just maybe, this is all really a bad dream, and if I close my eyes long enough, the enemy troops will be gone and I will wake up to be surrounded by my allies.” he thought to himself, as he closed his eyes and listened to what happened all around him.

He could hear the marching soldiers nearing his position and getting closer and closer with each cacophonic sound of battle and each pa.s.sing step. A great cheer sounded across the battlefield, his own troop’s final battle cry or the enemy’s shouts of victory.

Of the two he didn’t know which was which, but what he could make out, was a distinctive lack of weapons clas.h.i.+ng near his position, meaning that the troops that where defending him had likely chosen to surrender, at this he let out a breath of relief that he had been holding and batted away the tears in his eyes.

He took the paper of his eyes and gazed at an astounding sight before him and in the valley bellow the supply base.

For behind the first ma.s.sive wave of enemies was his own allied forces pursuing them, this wasn’t a counterattack, this was a route and now he saw that the Federals where being surrounded on all sides by his troops and getting cut to pieces.

“Sir, a message from Commodore Horatia: ‘I apologies for my tardiness and sloppy pursuit, but with everkind providence on our side, I have achieved a breakthrough and despite my horrendous advance, I along with the other divisional commanders have managed to trap the enemy. I await further orders’.” Butz read the message to his commander.

“Tardiness, sloppy pursuit!?........Compared to what…….. a bolt of lightning?”  Metternich thought to himself as he also read the message and then gazed at the field before him, where the enemy was now perfectly encircled by his sailors and soldiers.

He looked back at the message; reread it, before once more tearing his gaze towards the field to see if there was anything he had missed.

 Where there flaws in the troop’s formation?

He found none, so he turned his head back towards the message and speed-read it once more.

He repeated this action a second and third time, to truly check if anything was in misuse.

“That’s odd, for a moment the writhing seemed blurry.” He pondered to himself, after the fourth time of repeating his action.

But he thought nothing much of it. After all, it’s not like rapidly moving your eyes and head from a book towards something in the distance and back, all while there’s a raging thunderstorm above you and partial darkness all around, would be something that would temporarily impede one’s eyesight, wouldn’t it?

“Transmit the following: ‘Spare no expense and blast them to Oblivion!’ Also Werner, get your Berets down there, it’s been almost five minutes since your soldiers decimated the enemy and that’s just bad business for us!” Metternich said to Butz and Von Braun.

“Yes sir, you heard him boys and girls, let’s go kill something!” the Colonel of the 88th said over the comm crystals to his soldiers and they all gave a shout of ‘hurrah’ and raised their spears to the heavens, where immediately a thunderbolt struck the ground barely a kilometer away from them.

That made their bodies hug the ground, and their brains realize that raising a long metallic and energy conductive object high above your head during a thunderstorm, was not brightest of ideas.

“Why don’t we get to some lower ground first, also get a few of your water warriors to spread a layer of distilled water mist above us, no sense in losing soldiers to the thunder.” Metternich told him and Werner gave a nod, still mentally chastising himself for raising his own weapon earlier, and therefore doing something that a primary school child, knew was a bad idea.

“First, I fail to defeat that Turneissnen character, then I make several loosing bets, and now I have IQ compet.i.tion from toddlers, what’s next? Will the ribs I ate yesterday come to life and attack me?” Werner thought to himself as he gave his order to his Berets and led them to join the battle.

Metternich also ordered Butz to join the main army, so he could bravely lead his soldiers. Specifically from behind as many bodies between him and the enemy as there were available and preferably a few light years away, but then we all do things that we don’t like from time to time.