The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (93 page)

“The true purpose of the exercise was not to complete the objectives, it was to train your fighters to wage war as a cohesive force and to prepare them for the horrors of the warfare we will face.  In that respect, we all failed today, both we who organized and operated the exercise, and you who commanded.  Almost all of your fighters did no more than supply power and spectate over your Command Link, and the experience was of little value to them as training.”

He paused as he glowered about the gathering, seeming to meet every eye, then continued.  “The joint Triax-Kellarani training exercise scheduled for two days from now has been postponed.  The gods of The Triax and a few of their people have been coming to Kellaran quite often recently, so it sometimes seems that they are nearly here already.  Their sixteen world-craft are approaching us at tremendous speed, but the fact remains they are still very far away, and that it would still require almost six more years before they would arrive within the moon system of Kellaran.  That is where they feel they need to be for their mortals to truly assist in the defense of Kellaran.

“Soon after we began working together, we of the Pantheon of Kellaran suggested that they might Translocate their entire force here.  Their gods say that they had never considered Translocating so much so far.  They are capable of it, but such a feat would leave them dangerously drained and vulnerable for days until they recovered.  We of Kellaran have proposed to assist them with this, but they are nervous about such a co-operative effort, particularly their mortals.  This is understandable, for if any of their world-craft are rendered unusable, there is not enough room for its complement aboard their other craft, and their nearest survivable habitat is a Triax outpost in a star-system very distant from here.  If they lose a mother-ship, they lose almost everyone aboard her.  The operation has been repeatedly postponed, until all of them and all of us can be completely certain of its safety.

“Thus, the joint exercise with them has also been postponed for at least a week.

“You can make good use of the time.  Bring the other nations of Kellaran up to pace with yours, and be prepared to have them participate in the next exercise.

“Until we have a method of testing you that trains all of your forces at once, instead of merely training most of them to be nothing more than batteries, fighters with combat effectiveness scores greater than five thousand will not fight in exercises with the rest of your forces, nor will power-sharing or remote-combat be allowed.

“Those of you with scores greater than five thousand can participate in the next general exercise as commanders, but not as combatants.  Those high-scoring  fighters, Strike Wizards, and those who can fight remotely with Simulacrums and other methods, will be tested in separate exercises.

“Those with scores greater than one million will be invited to train with the gods.

“Know that when all further exercises are held, the individual behavior of the simulated demons you will face will be run by the gods of The Triax, and they will co-operate with us in commanding them.  In our war with the demons we fought them for more than fifty years, but the Triax have been at it for eons.  We have to grant that they know a long stride more than we do about how demons fight, and their knowledge of the subject is some seven million years more up-to-date than ours.  Their assessment of our efforts is that our simulated demons show the same offensive capability as real demons, and they’ve helped us be more accurate in that respect, but they maintain that our simulations don’t fight like real demons.  In particular, we’re not duplicating the unpredictable, vicious, and cunning nature of the demons. 

“This is understandable.  Ours are orderly military minds, and are therefore almost diametrically opposite to the orientation of the demons.  Those who will guide your enemies in the joint exercise will give you a far more accurate depiction of true battle with demons, so I warn you to guard against complacency.

“Another difference in the next exercises is that they will have no time limit.  They will continue to complete victory, or to complete defeat.  You can be sure that all of you and all of your forces will be tested to your utmost.

“After the first joint exercise, we will have another, then another, then another, until it is time to begin the true war.  Each exercise will be more difficult than the last.

“Know this; The Triax have been victorious in the majority of their encounters with the demons.  But as mighty as they are, there have been times when they were defeated and forced to flee.  And there have been times when they faced a force of demons so strong that they dared not even show themselves, and instead were forced to watch and wait until the great horde broke up into smaller hordes, then hunt them down one by one.

“There is a better than even chance that the horde we will face will be weak enough that they will be heavily over-matched by the Kellaran-Triax alliance.  But there is a very real chance that we face an enemy that will overmatch us, even if we become ten times as dangerous as we are now before we fight them.  The rock that contains these demons is about nine hundred and twenty kilometers long, six hundred kilometers wide, by four hundred and forty-five kilometers deep.  It is the largest that The Triax have seen the demons use for such a long journey.  I’ll leave it up to you to calculate how many demons could be hidden in such a stone.

“The Triax speculate that the demons may have chosen this huge rock because it was already moving at great speed in the direction they wished to travel when they found it, and so using it saved them a great deal of energy and effort.  But we cannot afford to assume that this is so.

“If they were a weak horde who merely jumped aboard an oversized rock because it was going in the right direction, it would stand to reason that they would simply let it continue at full speed until it reached the inner worlds, and then either Translocate off of it and let it impact with the sun, or they might break off the part that contained them and then slow that if they thought they might continue to need it to shelter them from the void, and again, let the rest of it continue to fly into the sun.

“The fact that they are expending the massive energies needed to slow that flying mountain range indicates that they are numerous and intend to keep it for a while.  The fact that they can afford the energy to do so indicates that they are powerful.

He paused for a second to see how they reacted to that, then brought his lecture to a conclusion.

“Please inform us when you will be ready for exercises with all of the militaries of Kellaran, and we will schedule them.

“You will be informed when the first joint Triax-Kellarani exercise has been reliably rescheduled.

“Again, I congratulate you.  Today’s exercise was of little use as training, but it was an astonishing display of the most innovative methods of warfare.”

He gave a nod, and vanished.

Somonik took the center of the circle.  “Since the end of The War of The Founding of The Just Alliance and the initiation of the time-bubbles, military matters on Kellaran have returned to being national matters.  Many of the most senior commanders and other key people who coordinated and commanded the military of The Just Alliance are in the time-bubbles, including Prince Yazadril, Supreme Commander of The Militaries of The Just Alliance.

“It was thought that little would change during the two months for us that they are gone, and perhaps that would have been so, if Prince Mark and his family had not emerged early.

“But they did emerge early, and have since acted in ways that have changed life on Kellaran completely.  Most significantly in the immediate term; the institution of the new training systems, the Healing spell that allows them to be practical, and the Work spell that has freed almost everyone to participate.

“Were it not for the need of the non-magical humanoid races to deal with their suddenly becoming magical, almost ninety percent of our world’s surface populations would be combat-ready right now.

“The aquatic races are behind us all, and are still in the initial stages of militarizing and preparing for war.  While most of our populations are now soldiers training to fight in the void, and the other established races of The Just Alliance are now soldiers and militia who are training to be wizards, the aquatics are still training civilians to be soldiers as they expand from fairly small peacetime levels of military participation.  Of them the Kag are most ready, being a predatory and aggressive race who have had many conflicts, both among themselves and with other races.  The Southernmost are the other extreme; while they are also a predatory race who have as much potential for warfare in their nature as any other, they have been so isolated and so civilized throughout their entire existence that they have never had a war.

“When the time-bubbles end, those within them will emerge expecting only minor changes in the world over the two months of real time that they missed, but they will face a surprisingly different Kellaran.

“At any rate, because of the results of Mark and his family’s actions, military training was accelerated in Serminak, and we in Xervia have chosen to match them in that.

“The time has now come for The Just Alliance to re-assert control over our world’s militaries again, since the gods have decided that exercises involving all of Kellaran’s nations is the next reasonable step in our military development, and I agree.

“We are making great strides in a short time, and even if the gods had not requested their inclusion, I fear that the nations of Debivin, Kletiuk, Felion, Oceania, and the undersea peoples are falling too far behind us.  Though they may not be able to bring all of their forces to bear in our next exercise, we should ask them to bring what they can.

“I therefore ask that we meet with their rulers and commanders who remain available, tomorrow at the twentieth hour, Standard Time, in The Hall of The Just Alliance.

“Are we agreed?”

He took a quick accounting of the responses, and nodded.  “We are agreed.  I will take responsibility for briefing the aquatic rulers and commanders on what has transpired, and asking them to the meeting.  Prince Mark, will you speak with the humanoids?”

“Certainly.” Mark nodded.

“Thank you.

“Do we have any more business here for today?”

None spoke, so the ancient white dragon nodded again and finished with; “Until tomorrow then, farewell.”

With that, all the Xervians except a few of the unicorns Translocated out.

Mark and his commanders did so a moment later, appearing in The Lair of The Dragon Lord Regent in Serminak.  All but Mark’s family were dismissed and left by various means.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable.  Our home is your home.” Povon said as she and Kragorram reclined, and she started giving him a full-body scratch massage with her claws, starting from the tip of his nose and working to the tip of his tail.  She considerately cast a quick automated spell that collected the millions of spent crimson scales she was dislodging and stowed them in a huge stone cask she had handy.  Kragorram rumbled a groan of pleasure so low it was more felt than heard.

“Thanks, I think I will.” Fire giggled, and assumed the fiery-looking dragon Simulacrum she’d used when they’d visited Zarkog.

They sensed somehow that it was a big moment for her; that visit with Zarkog was the only time she’d assumed dragon form with anyone but Karz, and she’d never done it with their parents.  She noted what Povon was doing and pushed Karz to the floor with playful roughness, and started giving him what Kragorram was getting.

“Aww, that’s sweet.” Talia smiled as she lounged on the floor, a large section of which was covered with a thirteen centimeter deep red velvet quilted pad.

Val appeared and stretched luxuriously as she said; “Good, I’m glad you’re done.  I’m so ready for a break, but I was holding out until you were finished.”

She flopped down on the padded floor beside Talia as she Linked with her siblings to see how the exercise had gone.

“You know, you dragons have altered your size and appearance so many times to be accommodating and comfortable in our homes, and it looks like this is the occasion to return the courtesy.” Six chuckled as he, then Val, then Alilia, assumed Simulacrums with roughly the same bulk as average adult dragons, about thirty meters tall.

They lounged on the floor near the dragons, and Alilia commented; “You know, this was a good idea.  This place does seem much more comfortable this way.  Not overwhelmingly huge.”

“You don’t mind if I talk to some rulers while you’re all relaxing?” Mark asked.

“I don’t mind if they don’t.” Kragorram said with a rumbling chuckle.  “Or you can use the conference room if you want.”

“Nah, not my style.” Mark chuckled.

“Whatever.” Kragorram muttered contentedly.  “Just so you realize that nothing short of a real attack by the demons is going to get me to move before Povon’s done this.”

As Mark started psionicly contacting the humanoid rulers, Fire asked; “What should I do with the scales?”

“For now, I have a jar you can have.” Povon stated as she Retrieved another four hundred litre stone cask.  “When you have time you can sell them.”

“Oh?  What are they worth?  And who would I sell them to?”

“About a quarter of the value of ivory, by weight.” Povon told her.  “And almost any major market will have buyers for them.  Small, shiny, colorful ones like ours are valued for jewelry, mosaics, embroidery, and the gnomes and elves have used them in scale-mail armor.  Billigog the blue has the biggest ones, some of her scales are over two meters wide, and she has a contract with a shipyard in Felion that buys all of them for armor plating and spell-proofing on Shiganzhu warships.

“They’re one of the few things that dragons have sold to other races for a long time.  If we don’t, we end up with great piles of them, and the piles are soon infested with scale salvagers from most of the smaller races.  I find it ironic that the other races have always pictured dragons as resting on huge piles of treasures.  Now they truly are treasures, because they’re widely coveted and the traders that buy them are well-established everywhere, but they were always just piles of discarded scales.  Along with a few claw-filings and shed teeth of course, which are also valuable among the smaller races.”