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Border Patrol; or: How the Vasilissa of Lakonia Keeps Herself Amused
Topic Started: Mar 3 2015, 06:29 AM (125 Views)
Mastropa
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Zinovios Mesolongias, Epistatis

Vasilissa Exarcheia leaned out of the top hatch of her personal IFV to get a better look at the half-finished wooden structures visible in a newly-cleared patch of the valley floor below. “Give me some binoculars, damn it,” she growled, reaching her hand back into the vehicle without looking down. The driver quickly slapped a pair into her palm, and she raised the binoculars to her eyes without another word. A moment later, her lips quirked up. “No sentries or guards, no attempt to hide themselves, and I don’t see a single worried glance around.” Exarcheia lowered the binoculars. “They’re obviously not from around here.”

“As the scouts reported, my lady,” the driver reminded his superior.

“Screw the scouts,” Exarcheia replied as she dropped back into the vehicle and handed the binoculars back. “Half of the reports we get like this are garbage and you know it. Just kids playing at being Lakonia’s grand defenders… Eris save us from their immaturity.” The vasilissa grinned more widely as she remembered her own days in the scouting ranks, scrapping with her comrades for the commanders’ favor and recommendation. Scouts were rarely older than twenty, given that Lakonian policy stuffed as many fully-grown Achaians into the standard ranks as possible. But that wasn’t an end to the adventures, since the tribal militia went on its own periodic raids in order to keep the wilderness outside of Lakonia’s borders empty of possible rivals. Admittedly, those raids were usually organized for form’s sake, in order to show off the might of the soldiery to the laborers, rather than for any serious defensive measure. As this had been Lakonian policy since the foundation of the tribe, in the days of old Anassa Anafiotika, there were precious few people who didn’t actively avoid any territory in range of Lakonia’s swift infantry.

The exceptions were wanderers, usually without any local understanding, who would make themselves prime targets for Lakonian raids as a result of their blundering. Should a scout encounter any group of people moving through territory that bordered Lakonian lands, they were expected to report it immediately; their commanders would then send a unit or two to intercept whomever the scout had spotted, either to capture or eliminate them. There were often very few casualties on either side, as such wanderers were not prepared for any fight and, when confronted with a fully-armed Achaian detachment, were more likely to surrender in confusion than to flee and be shot. Those brought into Lakonia were never permitted to leave again, being added to the labor pool on which the Lakonian Achaians depended to maintain their martial readiness. While such captures had been rare throughout Vasilissa Exarcheia’s lifetime, they were at least routine enough that she would not have had to appear at the head of the expedition to personally oversee one.

These villagers appeared to be much different, however. They had only recently arrived in the area, of course; they were obviously ignorant of the danger that this area posed for them, and were unprepared for trouble of any kind. Yet unlike the Lakonians’ usual finds, these people were clearly organized, and in the process of building a permanent settlement in a place that had seen so many of their predecessors flee or be absorbed into servitude under the Lakonian Achaians. If only for the novelty of the situation, the vasilissa had chosen to be present as her soldiers did their duties here; she would almost certainly join in the interrogations, as well. “Right, then,” Exarcheia said. “We’ll wait half an hour here for Antipatros’s force to get in position behind the village, then we’ll put a few shells into the village and charge in from this side. Either they’ll run into Antipatros or they’ll be cut down in the forests.” The vasilissa shrugged. “Based on the anticipation I saw from most of the soldiers earlier this morning, I assume they’ll be up for a chase.”

“Yes, my lady,” the driver said automatically, glancing out through the IFV’s side viewports at the quickly-disappearing cavalry—Lakonia, like several other tribes, had continued to maintain non-mechanized units alongside newer armor in order to preserve the element of surprise against completely unarmored opponents in the wilderness, which was especially useful when the aim of attacking those opponents was to capture rather than to simply slaughter them. The armored IFVs would get no closer until the order to attack was given; once the mortars started firing, there would be no more use for secrecy, and the trap would already have been sprung.

The waiting was not as boring as one might have imagined, at least for Exarcheia. Higher-class Lakonians enjoyed their comforts, after all, and the vasilissa was no exception: She had brought several books and an imported handheld game console with her for the ride, in preparation for just this kind of operation. Most of the soldiers were not as lucky, being ordered to set up a temporary camp in order to question the prisoners almost as soon as they were captured, while a team set up three mortars and prepared a pile of shells for the imminent bombardment. Several others stationed themselves around the collection of vehicles and horses as guards, keeping an eye out for any surprise while their colleagues put the makeshift camp together, complete with ramshackle cages.

After about forty minutes, Exarcheia sighed and switched off the video game in her hands. “Time to get started, I suppose,” she said as she tucked the system into a bag lying at her feet. Clambering back up to poke her head out of the hatch above her, the vasilissa turned to the soldiers waiting by the mortars. “Send a few in,” she ordered. As they scrambled to obey, she turned held up her arm so that the drivers of the surrounding IFVs could see it; the moment that she heard the first bang of mortar fire, she thrust it forward, shouting, “Advance!”

The IFVs all sprang to life, their crews manning the weapons while their drivers began to pull forward. Exarcheia dropped back into her seat as her IFV also lurched forward, leaving the camp and its remaining troops behind. Closing the top hatch above her, the vasilissa peered out through the viewport in front of her as the distant village became larger and larger in view. It was smoking now; the screams were audible over the sound of the charging IFVs, with the occasional explosion causing them to peak. People were visible ahead, running in every direction; Exarcheia let herself smile as the vehicles around her opened fire on the edges of the scattering mass, cutting down several people and herding the rest back in the direction Exarcheia had planned. As the group of vehicles approached the almost-village itself, they maneuvered to skirt around it, refusing to be drawn into close quarters with their prey, and allowing the mortars to flatten the area without putting them at risk as well. Exarcheia smiled as the gunner in the turret of her own vehicle let off another string of shots, and a line of people in front of her collapsed, some still twitching as the vehicle ran them over. Turning to the driver she said conversationally, “It’s been too long since I’ve been out here.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, my lady,” the driver said, keeping his eyes on the terrain in front of him. “Still, the fewer risks the vasilissa takes, the better, yes?”

Exarcheia scoffed. “There’s a higher chance of me dying to a labor uprising than there is of me being killed out here,” she said, folding her arms as she turned back to her own viewport. Grimacing, she added, “I’m just glad to be out here shooting at something moving again. Well, watching you all shoot at something moving, anyway.” The vasilissa sighed as the line of IFVs finally moved past the last smoking house, remaining just slow enough that the still-living escapees were able to reach the tree line on the other side of the clearing before the IFVs had to make it obvious that they were just playing with their prey. As the fugitives began to disappear, Exarcheia reached down and picked up the short-range radio beside her. “Commander Antipatros, they’re all yours,” she said. “Commander Iraklis, bring up your cavalry to the village and make a sweep. Obliterate any hint of opposition you find there; I trust Antipatros will bring in more than enough captives that we don’t need to make any special arrangements for anyone left behind.”

“Yes, my lady,” Iraklis’s voice responded over the radio.

Exarcheia set the receiver back down and leaned back. “That was over too quickly,” she complained. “Gods, I hope the cavalry gives us a bit of a show here.”

The driver wisely said nothing.
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MAKARIA to the Achaian People:
Be as Many as the Stars
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Mastropa
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Zinovios Mesolongias, Epistatis

“We didn’t know, I swear! Please, we didn’t mean—wait, wait, we didn’t do any—NO!”

Exarcheia snorted as the young man yelled over the sound of a woman’s screaming. “I don’t understand,” she said as an aside to the nearest guard, “why they always seem to think we’re angry at them for something. ‘We didn’t do anything.’ Obviously; if this were revenge, don’t you think we’d make a point of saying it?”

“Of course, my lady,” the man said, keeping his eyes on a cluster of other prisoners as they stared through the wooden slats of their makeshift cage, horrified at the torture their companion was undergoing in front of the vasilissa and her gathered companions.

Exarcheia nodded to herself as the woman’s screams gave way to sobs, before turning her attention once again to the young man struggling to reach her. “I don’t care about what you didn’t know,” she said simply. “How about what you do know? Where do you come from? You know that, right?”

The prisoner stared at her for a moment, and the vasilissa sighed as she considered how traumatized he must have already been in order to completely miss her question. “You have five seconds to tell me where you came from before the commander gives your friend another gift,” she said bluntly, “starting now.”

The man blinked. “Uh—Zambiwa! Zambiwa!”

Exarcheia smiled. “Getting somewhere now, I guess,” she said. “Why are you here?”

“Haram Bo-Kay! They were killing us—” The man cut himself off as he realized the absurdity of his current predicament.

Exarcheia snorted. “Yes, it doesn’t look like running did you much good there.” The vasilissa glanced over to make sure that at least someone was taking notes. Seeing that there was a soldier nearby doing just that, she turned back again to the man. “So much for easy-to-buy houses, huh? So tell me, Haram Bo-Kay’s that collection of Islamists where you come from, right? So what possessed you to wander so far north as to run into me?”

The man stared at her, shaking his head. Either he had a secret or was simply too out of his mind to answer properly; Exarcheia didn’t care. Sighing in frustration, she turned away. “Have fun, Commander,” she said to Iraklis.

“No, wait! Wait!”

Exarcheia ignored the man’s pleading as the woman once again began to scream. To the soldiers surrounding her, she announced, “Have your fun, people, but be quick about it. I’m calling the trucks up to collect them, so you’ll probably have a couple of hours before they’re taken in for processing.” To the commander who was not currently busy indulging himself at the expense of the captives’ psyches, to say nothing of his specific victim’s physical health, she said, “It was excellent work as always, Antipatros. I’ll expect your induction report in the morning; you can tell me then if you learn anything more useful from them.” Glancing back to watch as several soldiers took the vasilissa’s invitation at face value and cracked open the gates to the cages to get inside—covered by their well-armed comrades, of course; almost every youngster could be expected to let a captive escape through stupidity and negligence, but these were veterans, as befitted companions of the vasilissa—Exarcheia added, “At the very least, we can expect more activity on our borders from now on. I don’t know what possessed these people to move as far north as they have, but if one group is doing it, others are sure to follow. Make sure that the border commanders step up their scouting, would you?”

“Of course, my lady,” Commander Antipatros said with a shallow bow.

Exarcheia nodded to him, before turning back to the IFVs parked a little distance away. Climbing up to the hatch, she took one last look at the commotion in the camp and called out, “Have fun!” before dropping into her seat once again. She pointedly ignored the sour expression on the face of her driver, whose duties prevented him from taking part in the festivities. “All right, back to the depot, and then straight to the manor,” she ordered. “I… suppose I can let the trucks wait until everyone’s had their fill.”

The driver sighed. “Yes, my lady.”
Edited by Mastropa, Mar 4 2015, 07:04 PM.
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MAKARIA to the Achaian People:
Be as Many as the Stars
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Mastropa
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Zinovios Mesolongias, Epistatis

Exarcheia lounged on a regal sofa—she had discovered the existence of such a combination when her father had tried to pair her with old Vasilefs Ymittos of the Kalymnos tribe, and she had ordered the manor’s craftsmen to replicate the vasilefs’s furniture suite immediately upon her return to Lakonia—as Commander Antipatros strode through the sun-drenched reception hall to greet her. “You’re not smiling,” she noted with a sigh.

“No, my lady,” the commander agreed as he came to attention a short distance away. “I have had to order increased militia patrols in addition to our scouts’ efforts.”

The vasilissa sat up and leaned forward. “Did the new labor give you any more information?”

“Not at all, my lady. The newcomers were too busy begging to be of any use. I believe that our men might have been too exuberant this time around; with your permission, I will strengthen our discipline.”

“Whatever you feel is best, Commander,” Exarcheia agreed. “I don’t know how they could have enjoyed themselves with any less exuberance, though,” she added, “so please don’t be too hard on them.”

Antipatros allowed himself to smile slightly. “I believe they will have other pursuits to take up their time in the near future. Whether they can be considered amusements or not will be up to the soldiery.”

“Go on.”

The commander reached into the jacket pocket of his militia uniform and produced a slip of paper, which he stepped forward to hand to the vasilissa. “This is a missive from the Office of Observation and Communication in the Megaron,” he said. Exarcheia took the paper with a snort, which Antipatros ignored. “Zambiwa’s officialdom, at least at the local level, has taken an interest in this exodus,” he continued. “The military is being asked to escort Zambiwan refugees out of the country.”

Exarcheia narrowed her eyes. “That sounds extremely foolish,” she said. “How will they take care of this… Haram-thingy?” she asked, only vaguely remembering the little bit of information that she had managed to acquire the previous afternoon. “How will they take care of their rebels if half of their military is spread out in this wilderness? I can only assume that they aren’t going to send entire divisions out in these escorts.”

“According to the Megaron, Zambiwa was not specific about its deployment,” the commander replied. “However, it also mentioned an increased military presence within the nation’s own cities. From that, we have to believe that the forces delegated to escort duty will be lighter than the optimum.”

“Is there an optimum for an escort?” muttered Exarcheia rhetorically, opening up the folded slip that Antipatros had handed her and reading through it quickly. She sighed. “You already told the border commanders to increase militia patrols, you said?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Good. Send word to the airfields that I want aerial scouting in addition to ground-level stuff. Send word to the Megaron that we’d appreciate an early delivery of jet fuel this year, and possibly an extra one on top of that, depending on how long this mess continues.”

Commander Antipatros bowed again. “I’ll see to it immediately,” he promised.

The vasilissa waited until the commander had departed the room before she got to her feet and wandered to the nearest window. The gardens immediately outside were filled with flowers and fountains, though the topiaries that her father had preferred were all gone now, replaced with the cold stone of Exarcheia’s preferred statuary. Here and there, a household laborer could be seen scurrying about, but most of the guards—to be sure, not all of them, but most—were plainly visible, keeping order simply through their stern presence. In her younger years, Exarcheia had often tried to get the guards to loosen their strict discipline and play with her; her father had not been amused, nor had the one guard she had succeeded in corrupting enough to catch the man’s attention. Now, of course, Exarcheia knew why her father had been so strict. She knew what human beings could do to one another, and she was grateful that men and women of the Lakonian militia were around to make sure that those things were always done to others, rather than to herself.

Exarcheia smiled slightly. If the men wanted to be ‘exuberant,’ she was more than happy to give them their head. For their part in keeping their fellow Achaians safe, they deserved whatever fun they could get—especially if that fun was itself a measure of protection against those that would turn the Lakonian tribe to ash.
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