Chapter Sixty-Two - Miniature Wargaming

"The main difference between a corporate army force and a national army force comes mostly from the ideology behind both.

In this essay, I will show how legislating for a shift from national to privatised armies is a net positive for the people who matter."

--A Study on Profitable Militarization, The Kissinger Foundation, 2027

***

It was hard, dealing with Gomorrah's crap while also feeling extremely twitchy and itchy all over.

The reflex package was definitely kicking in at the moment. I could feel it working across my entire body, but especially my fingers and toes, which I couldn't stop from twitching slightly. Unfortunately, with the power armour I was in, that slight twitching turned into far more noticeable motions of my hands.

"Are you okay?" Gomorrah asked mid-way through the briefing she was giving me. She was mostly listing out the forces at her disposal. Not mine. I didn't want to be in charge of jack or shit and no amount of Gomorrah shoving the responsibility my way was gonna change that.

"I'm fine," I said. "I got a nerve replacement thing going."

"Oh," she replied with a nod. "That's an annoying one."

"Wait, you did the same?" I asked.

The nun shrugged. "Nerves, some changes to my musculature. I have sheathing over my bones too. I've started the skin replacement."

"Really?" I asked. I remembered her mentioning something to that effect yesterday, but we didn't go into it.

"Cat, do you have any idea how much time I spend next to fire?"

"I've got a decent idea," I said. "More than the average person." And a lot more than anyone sane.

She nodded. "Good. Now, do you have any idea how flammable skin is? Not to mention hair."

"No, no I don't think I know that, and to be perfectly honest I'm not sure I want to know."

If it's any reassurance, your new skin will be significantly harder to burn, though you're not flame or heatproof. I suspect Atyacus will have offered his Vanguard a type of skin far more suitable to resisting that kind of threat than what I suggested to you.

I filed that away for never. "Well, whatever. Did you get used to it yet?"

"I've worn scratchier clothes. I can endure. My new skin's nice, I think. You get to decide where hair grows back, which is useful as well," Gomorrah said.

"Oh, shit, yeah. No more shaving your legs and armpits. That's huge."

Someone cleared their throat, and both Gomorrah and I stared across the holoprojector at a man in fatigues with a few extra markings on his shoulders. The general in charge of this operation.

Fortunately, Gomorrah and I had been chatting over a private channel. "Sorry, General. Stray Cat asked for clarification on something and I informed her privately. Anyway, as I was saying. Our current force disposition includes two battalions and an additional attached company."

I raised a hand. "Sorry, dumb question. You're tossing terms that I'm not familiar with around."

Gomorrah glanced my way, then the projector shifted from a map to a collection of teeny-tiny models of soldiers and tanks and bigger vehicles. These split into three distinct groups. "The smaller semi-independent group is the recon company under Lieutenant Moreau," she said.

One group flashed, and I recognized them easily enough. A dozen vehicles, mostly on the lighter side, and some fifty or so soldiers divided into smaller squads.

"Our second group is the Fifth Battalion, under Lieutenant Colonel Juno," Gomorrah said.

One of the men across from me at the table nodded, and I noticed that the little tag on his chest read Juno. I still had no idea how to read the chevrons on their shoulders. They were just fancy triangles, but the boys seemed to like it when they had more than anyone else. "Puck's Battalion is ready to serve," he said.

A bunch of vehicles and soldiers lit up under the label of the Fifth Battalion. Two... groups bigger than platoons lit up, maybe some two hundred odd soldiers in each, and a number of APCs and a few wheeled tanks.

"Alright," I said. "And the last group?"

"The Twenty-Second Battalion," Gomorrah said. "They call themselves the Maple Battalion. They're heavy armour."

This time what lit up was mostly tanks and what I imagined were the drivers and pilots for said armour. "Isn't there support staff?" I asked as I gestured to the projector."

"I'm not including them here," Gomorrah said. "Support crews will be staying on the safe side of the wall for the foreseeable future. We'll have some long-ranged artillery as well. Missile batteries mostly, and we have the air force on standby for strafing runs, aerial recon, and if it comes to it, aerial superiority, but looking at similar events, historically, suggests that we'll probably not need it."

"Alright," I said. "Thanks. And the general here's in charge of everything?"

"I'm Brigadier General Thibodeau," he said with a grunt. I got the impression that he was being very tolerant of me at the moment. To be fair, I wasn't giving the best impression.

"Thanks," I replied. "Sorry, look, I've been in a few shitshows before, but usually it's with like, militias at best, or a few PMC companies that need to be threatened into working together, or just civilians with guns. Never really got to work with people who have... you know, order."

"Hmm," he replied, but he conceded the point. Actually, it felt like I'd earned some points there, but I had no idea how or why.

Should I paint some triangles on my shoulders? Would they take me more seriously then?

"Okay, so, the plan's to head north. Are we setting up there or just sweeping in, fucking everything alien up, then heading back home for some R&R?"

The general grunted something, then the company list disappeared to be replaced by a map of everything north of New Montreal for some ways. "Our first stopping point will be Saint-Janvier. We'll be reaching that today. Tomorrow, we're continuing to Saint-Jérome. There's a walled settlement there which has held up so far. It'll be our final staging ground before we continue our move north."

"The idea is to wipe every hive within fifty kilometres of New Montreal," Gomorrah said. "That sounds like a deceptively small area, but it's actually fairly large." The map lit up, a great big section highlighted. "It will take weeks to scout it all manually, but we have some support tools from the Family that will pin-point hives. The army group will be assaulting those in force."

"Huh," I said as I leaned forwards.

Overall, it seemed pretty reasonable. If we wanted to keep the city safe, it made sense to take out any nearby hives. Sure, the aliens would just group up further out, but then they'd have to travel to New Montreal, and that would mean time to spot them and rain artillery down onto their ugly heads, or move out to intercept in the field.

"Okay, okay, so, where do you want Gomorrah and I?" I asked.

"On the front," the general said. "We've worked with samurai before. You're likely to kill a lot more xenos without losses than our forces in a short engagement. We're here to mop up and hold a line. You're the primary strike force."

"Alright," I said. "Yeah, that recon group was pretty useful last time. We should get more mortars and such set up too."

The general frowned, then nodded. "I'll make note of that. Some samurai don't like indirect fire installations. It 'steals their points'."

"Oh, trust me, I don't mind," I said. If this was as busy as I expected, then there'd be no lack of opportunities to make bank. "As long as I can get back home every night, I think this whole operation is going to be a cakewalk."

"You're really just asking for trouble, aren't you?" Gomorrah asked.

"Hey, troubles done good by me so far," I said. "So, what's next?"

"You won't enjoy this part," Gomorrah said. "But we need to go over it anyway. Force disposition, material acquisitions, logistical trains, and everything we need to make sure that we can keep this army group fed and stocked up on enough bullets and explosives to make sure everyone comes home alive."

She was spot-on when she said that I wasn't going to enjoy it. The mobile base rumbled on while I at least made an effort to keep up. Gomorrah might claim that she wasn't good at this sort of thing, but damned did she seem to love making sure deliveries were on time.

There was a faint alarm as we finally crossed the outer wall and were out of the city. From this point onwards, it was possible, even expected, that we'd be running into aliens that wanted to do nothing more than chow down on us.

Despite everything, I was getting pretty excited for this. It was gonna be fun.

Now, if only it could distract me from how my everything was itchy. Fucking power armour. It needed some holes so that I could scratch at myself.

***