Chapter Nine: Choosers of the Slain
“They're on Our Right, They're on Our Left, They're in Front of Us, They're Behind Us; They Can't Get Away from Us This Time.”
~ Lieutenant General Lewis Burwell Puller
To the right, to the left!
We will fight, to the death!
To the edge, of the Earth!
It's a brave new world from the last to the first!
To the right, to the left!
We will fight, to the death!
To the edge, of the Earth!
It's a brave new world, it's a brave new world;
It's a brave new world!
~ 30 Seconds to Mars, This Is War
“FREEDOM!”
OOOORRAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!
Corporal William Lawrence howled the cries like a wolf, firing blindly at the Federals. Sure, he wasn’t hitting much, but he wasn’t trying to. This would be a battle of the old school – in among them, bayonets flashing with the thirst of Mars’ fury. The god of war rode with the Syndicalists, screaming and shouting hatred for the Federal oppressors, urging his warriors to new heights.
“FREEDOM!”
The charge was unbroken, despite the accurate hail the Federals landed on them. A tommy gun erupted over on one of the flanks, then another. It was answered with a volley of grenades, scattered left and right as the Syndicalists tossed them in fury. Artillery started pounding the city, and Lawrence felt his will falter. Surely Federal artillery would –
It’s ours! It’s not Federal – it’s ours! We still have guns left!
The Federals were taking cover, ducking up to fire every now and then. They fought like veterans – elites, even. Lawrence made sure his bayonet was fixed as he charged.
“ONWARD!” he roared.
OOOOORRRAAAAAAHHHH!
Major Thomas Hardy fired again and again. His rifle was running dry, but he still had a grenade and his pistol to use, let alone the good, old-fashioned bayonet. This would be the kind of battle his great-grandfather had experienced at Vicksburg, at Petersburg and Richmond. Maybe Doug MacArthur wasn’t Ulysses Grant and Jack Reed wasn’t Bobby Lee, and perhaps instead of the brothers Jack and John Hardy it was just Tom – but it was like the past was reaching out to the future.
Crack! Crack! Rattatattatattatatta! Boom!
Gunfire, machineguns, grenades, artillery. It was a maelstrom of chaos and carnage, men firing and going down on all sides.
“Sir!” a voice called. Hardy paused from chucking his last grenade –
Boom! – to turn. The Boy – Sam – fired into the charging Syndies, clutching a paper between his fingers.
“I just got word from Double T! His men are closing fast but having trouble with a major enemy counterattack! Looks like this shit is all across the board!”
“Then we have to hold!” Hardy called. “We’re surrounded and outgunned. Fall back to the House! Fall back!”
Men started pulling back, but in the face of the Syndicalist artillery it was almost foolhardy. The guns stopped firing as the Syndies approached – obviously they had a spotter. Someone experienced.
Crack!
Sam went down with a scream, clutching his throat, neatly blown through. Hardy took one look at the angle, and his gut chilled.
“Sniper!” he screamed. “Watch out!”
He grabbed Sam’s last grenade, hurled it at the Syndies. The explosion ripped a hole in their line, but that only seemed to egg them on.
OOOORRAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!
“Clean kill. Through the neck.”
“Target?” Nikolas Kerenskai asked. Marv Keeper paused to relay something to the artillery.
“There, the officer! The one shepherding them to the House!”
Crack!
“Miss. He’s down behind that bench now. There’s some guys on top of the House too.”
Nikolas wasn’t watching the fight. His attention had been drawn by something else, lit by the many fires of Chicago.
“Marv,” he said, using his spotter’s name for the first time.
“What is it, sir?”
“I think we better clear out. NOW.”
OOOOORRRRRAAAAHHH!!
Lawrence surged forward at the head of the pack, firing his last shot. More machineguns blew holes in the formation – there was a .30 cal in the House, at least. Maybe even a fifty. Lawrence didn’t care.
Ahead of him he saw a Federal officer, standing over the body of a young boy. The man – a major – was reloading his rifle, clenching his teeth, obviously braced. He’d already fixed his bayonet.
“FREEDOM!” Lawrence shouted, charging the man. The major ducked his first stab, then came up with a punch – experience, perhaps, from youthful brawls. Whatever it was, Lawrence staggered, barely sidestepping a picture-perfect skewer. His own retaliation was knocked aside by a compact manuever, with no wasted motion. The rifles crossed and slammed into each other, then men hissing as they tried to force their victory.
Time’s on my side, though. If he gets caught up in this fight, my fellow workers will come and destroy him.
“FREEDOM!” Lawrence yelled again. He disengaged and slashed.
The major lost his rifle from the blow, but wasn’t dead. Lawrence couldn’t believe his eyes when the man whipped out the sword at his side – why he’d even brought it into combat was a mystery in and of itself, in the modern day. Perhaps he hadn’t expected a fight?
Lawrence parried a strike, then slammed the butt of his rifle into the major’s leg. The man went down with a grunt, launching a single vicious slash that traced from Lawrence'’ wrist all the way to his shoulder. The Syndicalist soldier screamed as his arm lit on fire.
He stabbed – the Federal dodged, rolling back to his feet. He kicked and knocked him back over, then leaped on top of him. His rifle was useless, his right arm wracked by pain.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.
OOOORRAAAAAAHHHH!!!
“FREEDOM!” Lawrence roared. He drew a knife, raised it for a final blow.
“FREEEEDDDDOOOOOOOOOOO-”
There was a flash of glorious light, then darkness.
“Free
that,” Lenny spat, reloading the shotgun. Tom Hardy pushed the bloody mess off him, grabbing his fallen rifle.
“You got any ammo?” he asked the serial killer. Len shrugged – a damning gesture.
“Do you?”
“No,” Hardy replied. He looked over for a moment at the House, so close but so far away. Most of his men hadn’t made it.
“We go down like heroes, Len,” he said. “America!”
“America!” Len repeated. The man leveled his bayonet at a man fighting Colt, then tore off into the fray.
Hardy dodged a stab, then killed the attacker. He drew his pistol and fired into the throng, rewarded by screams and shrieks.
It’s not enough. We need reinforcements, dammit!
Booooom!
Hardy’s heart stopped beating.
The Air Corps can’t fly at night!
Did it matter? Explosions wracked the Syndicalist flank. Men fled from the shelter of buildings, flames racing after them as a wing of B-26 Marauders cruised over the combat zone at an insane altitude, delivering the wrath of the gods.
It was like Ragnarok come to earth, the books of Revelations condensed into one night of pure asskicking, the Four Horsemen having decided this was too hardcore and gone to pick flowers instead as the gods of fire and fury had a drinking contest. The devastation was glorious, terrible – and heavenly. A warrior’s reward for a warrior’s work, while Loki looked on and laughed at the chaos, Mars drank in the dying with glee, and all the spirits of the Old Underworlds rose up to drag newcomers down with them to meet Hades in his fell glory. God himself stood in Chicago at that moment, leveled his finger at the Syndicalists, and decreed
Thou shalt have thine asses whupped.
They faltered. The Syndicalists actually faltered. Hardy had one moment of shock, then a sudden sequel moment of purpose. He was insane, out of his mind, crazy, suicidal – all synonyms.
With
victorious.
“COUNTERCHARGE!” Hardy roared.
His men – God bless them! – didn’t hesitate. The message was relayed through the lines to Colt, to Gutierrez, to Len, to all the soldiers. The Marines stayed in the House, as did the men who didn’t get the message, but everyone else took their bayonets and charged, ignoring their frailty and weakness, to hammer into the Syndicalists even as they recovered from the wave of sheer asskicking that had been given to them from On High.
One, two, three, four – Hardy lost track. Pistol in one hand, sword in the other, he was dealing death like a machine to the terrified Syndicalists. He surged at the head of his men into their formation, blood everywhere, screaming the call.
“STARS AND STRIPES!”
It wasn’t hollow anymore – now it rang with the fury of an air bombardment, the thunder of an armored attack, though little more than forty men were charging ten times their number.
The Syndicalists began to fall back, began to break. Hardy felt a flash of hope.
Then they reorganized. Someone was in charge over there, and he had pulled his men back together as explosions rained around them. Rifle fire lanced out from all sides, and Hardy realized his men were now fully surrounded.
“Back!” he shouted. Gutierrez was with him, relaying the order. The man broke a Syndie’s neck with one swing of his rifle, but then went down, shot in the head. Len was still roaring orders, but Colt was silent and missing. Hardy felt a pang at their loss – and that of the Boy. Sam. He was young enough he could almost have been Hardy’s son – if Hardy had a son.
“Fall back to the House!” Hardy roared. Len had taken up the call.
“Don’t Stop!” he chanted. “Fall Back!”
Don’t Stop! Fall Back! The soldiers replied. It was a drumbeat tune now – a song, almost. The Syndicalists hesitated, as if they were touched by the fearlessness shown by the Irregulars.
Then they charged anyway.
Hardy ran one through, but lost his sword. He fired the last shots in his pistol, drew his knife – but the first man he ran into knocked him down. His dog tag – dangling right in Hardy’s face – read
Tom Jones – he was a hulking man with muscles the size of coffee pots.
“THIS IS FOR THE NEW YEAR’S STRIKE!” he roared, raising back an axe. He’d probably looted it during the fight.
Hardy watched the axe lift. He feel the earth shaking with the fury of impending doom, still hear the chant. Len was calling “Major? MAJOR!”
Hardy saw his sisters, his brother, back in California. They probably hated him for his choice. He had hoped – so hoped – that Amy, at least, would leave the PSA. She was his twin, and closer to him than anyone else. But it wasn’t to be.
I wonder if she’ll feel it when I die, Hardy mused as the axe came down.
Blam!
“Tom Jones” crashed to the ground, blood pouring from a massive hole in his skull. The earth hadn’t stopped shaking.
“On your feet, Major.”
A hand grabbed Hardy and pulled him upright, seeming unconcerned about the mass of men streaming around them.
They were
Federal men. Hardy gaped as he saw tanks and infantry surging through the park, chasing the fleeing Syndies. A Union Jack, held by a stalwart bearer, materialized in the gloom, an officer shouting pitched orders and waving his rifle while a nearby sergeant fired a volley of obscenities at a harried messenger.
“-AND IF YOU DON’T DAMN WELL CATCH BANNON I’LL CHOP YOUR HORSE UP AND MAKE YOU SHOVE ITS NOSE UP YOUR-”
“Peters!” shouted the officer. “Focus, man! We’ve got Syndies to kill!”
“Colonel, Price reports his men have cut off the Syndicalist retreat.”
Hardy turned. Another messenger, mounted on a white stallion, was handing a paper to a man with a huge cowboy hat and a smoking revolver in hand.
My god.
“Thank you, Corporal,” Colonel Patrick “Texas Thunder” Walker replied.
An M2 tank bulldozed through some rubble nearby, gun exploding with the fury of all the Presidents reincarnated and given hand grenades, pointed at Jack Reed. A building shuddered and collapsed, the rubble crushing fleeing Syndicalist soldiers. It was amazing.
“Well, Major, I didn’t expect to find you practicing your firewood impersonation,” Walker grunted, kicking the fallen axe aside. “It was a little too realistic for my tastes.”
“Sir, I have wounded–”
“Being taken care of, Major. You’ll work with Captain Sanders. Bannon and Bradford are going to drive Reed out of Chicago.”
“It’s . . . over, sir?”
“I’m afraid so,” Walker grunted. “Pity. I wanted to kill every last one of them.”
He is out of his mind. But I’m glad as hell he’s on our side.
“The Irregulars have done tremendous work, Major,” Walker said. “Remember that. I’m putting in a transfer to have you attached to Third Battalion. You’re too blasted good at what you do. You’ve worked yourself out of your cushy resistance-organizing post.”
“I’ll want to bring my men, sir,” Hardy replied. Walker waved a hand.
“Of course, of course. We’ll talk turkey later. For now, you rest and see to your men. Work with Sanders, like I said.” Walker smiled. “I’ve got a city to capture. Can’t let you boys have all the fun.”
Walker turned and strode off, calmly sliding another bullet into his revolver. Hardy staggered back a few paces, then finally collapsed to a seat on some rubble. He had no energy, no adrenaline, no emotion left at all. Just a sense of – calm. Perhaps out of place in a city burning on all sides, wracked by fighting and war, but still calm.
There was a groan from under the rubble. Hardy jumped upright.
“COLT!” he cried. He heaved a structural support beam aside to reveal his subordinate officer, pinned under it.
“Heya, Major,” Colt gasped. “Little bit unlucky, eh?”
“Sanders!” Hardy waved. An officer turned to jog toward him. “Don’t worry, Colt, we’ve won. We’ll get you out of there.”
“We won?”
“Yeah, handily.”
“’Bout damn time,” Colt growled. Then he leaned his head back and fell asleep.
“Hurry, Mr. President,” the guard encouraged. Jack Reed pulled Louise along a little faster, well out of Chicago by now. They had no guide, no help – trying to make Detroit by dawn was foolhardy in any case. Perhaps there was a car to commandeer?
“Mr. President!” a voice hailed softly. Everyone turned, the guards drawing weapons.
A sniper team emerged from the chaos, covered in dirt. Reed’s eyes widened as he recognized the Death.
“I know this area,” Nikolas Kerenskai said. “And I know how to get to Detroit. You’re in safe hands now.”
Reed Cassidy eyed the storm clouds to the north.
“An omen, Stacks?” he asked. Steven ‘Stacks’ Fitzgerald shrugged.
“Just the usual blows we get. Have we heard any new from Chicago?”
“Not that I know,” Reed admitted. “Drives me a bit mad.”
“Yeah, same. So much pressure. We know how it’s gonna turn out – have from the start – but the feeling of limbo is just . . . well. You know.”
“Yeah, I do,” Reed agreed sourly. He turned back into the RADAR station. The operators were going about their work smoothly and efficiently while he and Stacks nursed drinks and waited for their shift as guards to come on.
“Hey, boys,” called the radioman. “We got news on Chicago.”
“Has it-”
“Garner’s already at the Presidential House. Literally.”
Captain Courtney Bradford waved Peters on. The House was a local CP now, flowing with management personnel, radio technicians, and even the President of the United States himself. Chicago was all but secured, but no one could stop Garner from hopping out here to meet Texas Thunder and commend the Irregulars. MacArthur was with him now, beaming and elaborating on his contribution to the air strike that allowed the Irregulars to counterattack and hold.
“Yank,” Captain Robert Price grunted. “Tosser had nothing to do with it. That was all Double T.”
“I see you’re using the local lingo, my Scottish friend,” Bradford teased. Price grunted.
“‘Local lingo?’ Pot and kettle here, Aussie.”
The two captains sat together, watching Major Hardy overseeing one of his officers being loaded into an ambulance.
“He really is a good officer, isn’t he?” Bradford finally asked. “I mean, for a Yank.”
“Who? Double T or the Irregular?”
“Both, I should say,” Bradford shrugged. Price considered.
“Yeah, they are. For Yanks.”
“Of course. For Yanks.”
Captain Sato Okada sipped calmly from his tea. He pursed his lips thoughtfully.
“Have you decided what to send the admiral?” prodded one of his crew. “For the return message?”
“No,” Sato denied. “I have decided that this needs a bit more heat. But I will give the return message some thought, I assure you. I have misgivings about this operation, but I will of course do as the Emperor demands.”
“Of course, sir,” the officer bowed.
“Mike, wake up.”
Amy sat down on her older brother’s bed in her guest room, uncharacteristically subdued.
“Amy!” Mike started. “What are you doing in here? I mean–”
“I know, I know, I’m your sister and this is embarrassing,” Amy replied, a flash of her personality shining through. “But that’s not what I’m here about. Chicago’s fallen.”
Mike paused. “Are we really surprised?”
“No,” Amy shrugged. “What surprises me is Garner announcing Tom’s name on the radio as the commanding officer of a unit that received a Presidential Unit Citation.”
“Ja, send him in.”
The door opened and an old man walked in. His hair was a chaotic mess of white, his face lined with age, but he didn’t walk with much of a stoop. He was awake and aware, as it were, and regarded his conversation partner with intelligent eyes.
Well, that fits, the Kaiser thought.
Intelligence is this man’s stock and trade.
“What is it, Herr Doctor Einstein?” the Kaiser asked. Albert Einstein took a seat.
“Mein Kaiser,” he began, producing a massive sheaf of papers. “I come with a recent discovery I think you should be aware of.”
“It’s early in the morning, Doctor,” the Kaiser replied. “I have just heard of Chicago’s fall and sent my congratulations to the Americans. Can it not wait?”
“No, I don’t believe it can. I have discovered a kind of energy that can level cities if weaponized – with a single bomb.”
The Kaiser paused. “That is the realm of English – oh, what is the book? The Hobbit, ja. The one the Canadian recently published.”
“Tolkein, ja,” Einstein nodded. “But this is no magic ring, mein Kaiser. I have provided all the formulas and equations that support my theory, and I have evidence that the Russians, the French, the Canadians, the Americans, then American Unionists, and even the Japanese are all working on the same project. Even the Pope is looking into atomic energy!”
The Kaiser frowned. “Speak, then, and let this be good. What of this . . . atomic energy?”
____________________
And thus the Battle for Chicago comes to a close. I went through several versions of formatting this as two chapters before deciding to screw it and post to conclusion of the fight as one big whammy.
This will probably mark a slightly longer update gap than usual as I decide which of the myriad plot points will be pursued next when we resume. It's notable that my word document for this AAR has already reached 1/4 the length of both my actual novels. Feel proud you've helped me get there!
And since I'm not that knowledgeble about Kaiserreich, having only played the ACW(albeit repeatedly because dammit it ROCKS) anyone feel free to suggest your own plot threads from anywhere in the world. I'll also likely be playing Kaiserreich here soon for inspiration.
Now I can reveal the big thing: this isn't based on one single game. This is
heavily based on a single USA game I played, that's true, but I'm taking elements absorbed from multiple playthroughs of the ACW on all four sides and weaving them into one big narrative. Thus, the AUS is likely to be highly effective - as much as the USA and the PSA and even the Japanese, since I've worked with all three. The CSA isn't exactly out of the picture yet either, since they still control western PA, Ohio, and most of Michigan. Broken but not destroyed, as it were.
In any event, any and all comments and suggestions are appreciated even if I never get around to specifically replying to them. And who knows? I may actually use your ideas.
I will give on hint though. The next chapter will begin several weeks later, from the perspective of someone from a faction we've never seen on-camera even once so far in this AAR.
Until next time, my friends . . . .
-L