novelzi Chapter 105 – The Caretaker Arrives
Chapter 105 – The Caretaker Arrives
Kassandora sat on a hill with Neneria, Fer, Kavaa, Iniri and Helenna. It was sequestered far away from the camp, the lights of cars and campfires burned like tiny little glow bugs in the distance, they pranced about in the darkness of night, although night here had never been dark. There were too many stars in the sky, and the moon today shone exceptionally brightly.
Fer had carried Iniri and Kavaa here, but it was a needed private location away from prying ears. A single word overheard would put all the goodwill she had built up in the two and a half weeks since the Reclamation War began to be wiped away in an instant. The meeting had already began, the Goddesses sat on logs or the ground or simply stood as Kassandora drew out what she remembered the Caretaker looking like on the ground. “My initial theory is that it will be attracted to us, since we’re Divines.” Kassandora finished.
“You have little to base that off.” Neneria crossed her arms and looked down at the drawing.
“It does not target the coastal cities that hold scheduled burnings.” Kassandora said. “If it was simply protecting the Jungle, it would have smashed their firewalls centuries ago.” Neneria shrugged and rolled her eyes, she obviously did not like the reasoning, but there was little else Kassandora could say. It was simply a shot in the dark, there was little else that could be said about it.
“It wasn’t fast.” Fer said.
“No, if we stay close to the main camp, move no more than ten miles north or south, we’d be able to intervene if it comes here.” Kassandora said. That would cover all the bases then. “Neneria, I want you to scout out locations with your Legion, see the terrain and report it to me.”
“I’ll hand in a report tomorrow morning.” Neneria said flatly.
“Do you think the Binturongs will be able to stop it?” Kavaa asked. Kassandora answered as honestly as she could, there was no reason to hold back information with this lot.
“We’ll have to see, it was plant-like, it should burn. Why? Do you have any other ideas?”
Kavaa looked around awkwardly, then finally said, or rather asked, what was on her mind. “Baalka’s blood could kill it, couldn’t it?” Fer and Neneria both looked at her as if she had just broached a topic she shouldn’t have, they leaned in, Neneria’s face going colder than it usually did as Fer’s eyes sharpened. Kassandora answered before those two could start an argument. Sisterhood was always a sore topic for them, they could say the worst things about each other, but as soon as someone else suggested something about even touching one of theirs, tight ranks formed.
“The Jungle assimilates, Baalka’s blood could kill it, or it could birth a monster. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take.” That shut down any further conversation of using Baalka. Kassandora narrowed her eyes though, that was an idea she had not thought of. Baalka’s blood was limited, even with Kavaa’s healing to accelerate the blood production, it could only fill up maybe a dozen shells.
She kept her face cool. This wasn’t the first time she had gone behind her sister’s backs, it wouldn’t be the last. A dozen shells of Baalka’s blood would do. Kavaa and her would simply do it privately.
“And if you can’t stop it?” Kavaa asked.
“I do have a plan B.” Kassandora hoped she didn’t have to use it.
“And that it?” Kavaa asked.
Kassandora crossed her arms. She did not even want to talk about the other option, it was an ace among aces, she simply didn’t want to deal with the fallout. “It will work. Now for the plan.”
Kassandora stood on that small hill between the camps and Jungle, a pair of binoculars hanging from her neck. She wanted the Caretaker to arrive, but until it did, she would prepare. She turned around and looked past her camps. Eight large trucks were arriving, each one a massive moving watchtower, a ladder on them reached up for the driver to enter the cabin. Each one pulled an eight-wheeled trailer. Their loads were secured on the back, the massive cannons strapped down, the treads with blocks underneath them to stop the cargo sliding off.
Eight more Binturongs had arrived.
They had twenty four guns now, hopefully more would arrive. She hoped for it, but she planned around only having the bare minimum. That was how wars always were planned, you hoped for everything, you worked with what you had.
Kassandora walked to the planes. She had made her own design for a weapon of war. It was based off something long in the past. The engineers should be able to design it even in the desert. After all, once you had the planes, how hard was it to make them simply drop things?
Kassandora stood on top of one of the tall Arikans mountains. It wasn’t really a mountain, but she had no other way to describe it, it was simply a giant rock, rising several hundred feet into the air with cliffs on all sides. The natives could scale these, but heavy equipment could not, that did not really matter though once helicopters came into the fray. They had carried tents and radios, camouflage netting, rangefinders and small radars to this rocky outcrop, and two others, one to the north, one to the south.
The Goddess of War looked around and inspected the view around her. Two thousand of Kavaa’s Clerics had been organised into small teams of two, then formed a massive cordon around the area. No civilians, not even the Kirinyaan government had been allowed here. The government didn’t even want to, not after they heard what Arusei, Kimani and Jebet had to say about the issue of the Caretaker.
With twenty four Binturongs working around the clock, they had burned down a rectangle, five by ten miles of Jungle here. The Binturongs worked like never before, they broke down like never before too, but that was why they had been divided into three batteries of eight. Kassandora could see them all from here, battery one and two were firing from the ash, battery three was off to the North, clearing more of the Jungle’s edge. Four men per gun, another four to assist with loading, thirty dedicated engineers to each squad, with a host of vehicles to supply ammunition needs.
Where each battery theoretically needed only thirty two-men, with the auxiliary and support squads, they quickly jumped to over two hundred. Kassandora had finally implemented the first traces of hierarchy in her army. Sokolowski was in charge of the first, Zalewski the second, a driver by the name of Ekkerson who Kassandora saw talent in had been put in charge of the third. Each captain had a radio, a compass and a large pick-up truck to serve as a command vehicle. Some famous millionaire who had grown sweet for Helenna had been more than happy to donate them from his private collection after she batted an eyelash and said a few pretty words.
The trucks themselves were mounted with a radar, rangefinder and broadcaster, and had been painted a light green, with stripes of red to be identified from the distance, and Kassandora had ordered them to always be parked in the centre of the battery. Zalewski had been the first to work out why, although that was expected from a man who once flew planes. Their exact coordinates were transferred every ten seconds to the men besides Kassandora.
She had taken a team of twelve with her, although that had been because she always liked easily divisible numbers. Three would have been enough, four would have given them leeway. Now eight of the men stood around and looked through binoculars at the Jungle with little to do. Two operated the radios, two more wrote down coordinates and moved boxes and lines on the map behind Kassandora.
This was done much like in the past, a map of the terrain laid out on a table large enough for Fer to lie flat on. Several compasses lay on it for easy reach, one close by to each red rectangle that represented a battery of eight Binturongs. Kassandora clicked the earpiece in her ear, custom made for Divines. Only Fer lacked one, and that was because they would fall out of the tall ears on the top of her head. She simply had a pair of men trailing her, with their own radios. “Radio check. Binturongs. Over.”
“Team One, loud and clear copy, over.”
“Team Two, loud and clear copy, over.”
“Team Three, loud and clear copy, over.” Kassandora smiled at how perfect their organisation was. True, it was untested in real battle yet, but they had the foundations down.
She clicked her earpiece again. “Neneria, radio check.” A click came a second later to indicate Neneria was broadcasting.
“Loud and clear Kass. Nothing here.” Neneria had been tasked with nothing in particular, she was the strongest Divine they had, she simply had to be here in case her presence could drag the Caretaker away. And her Dead Legion could be called on to support. Kassandora didn’t know how much it could do, her pocket-army killed mortals. How many mortals would it take to fell a titan? Countless amounts. Without mage support, it had usually been impossible.
Kassandora did not reply. She checked up on Fer’s men. “Kassandora. Radio check, everything fine? Over.”
“Everything fine and clear, over.” One of the men replied. Kassandora knew it was, she could see Fer from her location. The woman was taking a lazy walk. Fer was here for the inevitable time when a Binturong would get stuck in the ash or the dirt. If it broke down, she was to simply get the crew out and leave the machine. She had been outfitted with a loose cloak, and then grew herself a thick coat of fur to protect from the Sun’s heat. She had actually wanted to go naked, but Kassandora forbid that, it was bad for the attention of her men, and she needed at least a belt for the canteens of blood. Same as when they entered the Jungle, but far less. She had four canteens of Kassandora’s for strength, and two of Kavaa’s for injuries.
Iniri was to help her with her command over nature. That Goddess was meandering about in between Batteries One and Two, it was easy to make her out when she wore her colourful green wardress against the cold ash she stood on. Originally, Iniri wanted to fight, Kassandora expected she would fight anyway so no order on non-combat was issued, but Kassandora did not expect much from Iniri. The woman herself said the Jungle was not her demesne.
The Binturongs themselves wouldn’t be a loss, they were far too unreliable to be used in a real war. Kassandora liked them, but now that she had stayed with them from more than two weeks, she had grown to know their faults. The crews would be the real losses, not out of same vain moral cause to safeguard life but because Kassandora had spent almost a month training them. How they worked now was a league to how they worked then. The gunners and loaders especially. It was like this in the past too, production could be scaled almost infinitely but training was simply a hard slog that required time. It always did, it always will.
Kavaa was walking about down there too, leading a team of three dozen healers trailing behind her in a tight formation. She was in charge of healing and strengthening men with her blessing for when the battle started. Like the other Goddesses, extremely easy to spot, although this one was from the pristine silver armour she wore that glinted brightly in the Sun. Helenna was close by, although Kassandora could not spot her. She had come just as Neneria had, for support and for having yet another Divine here to lure the Caretaker.
“Goddess!” One of the men on overwatch said. “I see something!” He pointed west, out onto that great sea of green that made up the Jungle. Kassandora squinted, then gave up and looked through her own binoculars.
A dark mountain was rising out of the horizon. Kassandora felt her lips twist into a smile and her eyes start to burn. Her heart beat faster, her cheeks turned red, she grew excited.
It had arrived.