Chapter 137: The Governorate's Plight: Episode 6
Phew, at least dragging out this so-called strategy meeting has let the excitement boiling over in my head settle back down. Better than charging off blindly to escape and getting shadowed for a repeat of the Salu River Debacle. For now, let's just plug the holes in our defense lines with whatever troops we've got. Hold the line like that, and eventually an escape angle will open up.
"Even if that bastard Grozny has a ton of veteran soldiers under him, those vets are only human—they're not invincible. The gaps left by dead veterans will be filled by green rookies. We need to overhaul our current defenses on a massive scale while probing their weak spots with diversionary attacks. Think we can pull it off?"
"Y-yes... We hold the advantage in naval forces, so it's feasible. But... the state of the ground troops slated for planetary landings is..."
"At least we're ahead on the naval front—that's something. Landings are impossible with ground forces alone? Then deploy the naval infantry. If they hadn't scuttled their own fleet en masse at Scapa Flow, who knows how this would've played out."
"No need to worry on that score, Your Excellency. Ever since the 'Scapa Flow Atlantis Imperial Battle Fleet Mass Scuttling Incident', it's been over a decade, and they still haven't rebuilt their navy to pre-incident levels."
"And conveniently, our own naval forces are relatively intact compared to the army. Looks like we've got an opening for the offensive. Am I right?"
"Your Excellency speaks wisdom! Truly, you are a master tactician who sees straight through the enemy's vulnerabilities!"
"Deputy Governor Your Excellency's grasp of military affairs is unmatched in the entire Lucid Empire!"
Closé, who had been on the verge of leaping up alone, had regained his composure and planted his ass back in the meeting room—not out of any officer's sense of duty, but pure primal survival instinct kicking in. With the governor-general lost to the orgy, at least having the deputy governor in the chair calmed the other attendees.
In truth, Closé's survival instincts were still blaring warnings even as he chaired the meeting. Those new weapons the enemy had rolled out... No clue on their supply lines or sustainability yet, but they had something even deadlier than the weapons themselves. Fail to find an escape angle soon, and he'd be done for.
There was no way for Closé to know his arch-nemesis, the Atlantis National Defense Forces, had gotten a protagonist buff, but his gut was sniffing out the danger better than any precog ability.
At any rate, the heated meeting—chaired by the deputy in place of the absent governor-general—dragged on for over an hour. Even the army reps, usually frosty toward the navy, stuck around, churning out a dozen or so viable plans to improve the situation.
"To avoid counterattacks during the defense reorganization..."
"At the same time, ways to secure forces for striking enemy weak points..."
"And we need to decide whether to prioritize offense or defense if preemptive strikes fail..."
Even a Lucid military stuffed with morale-worshipping zealots had brains enough to spitball real strategies. None of them truly resonated with Closé, though—that was the problem.
How many of these clowns were just seizing the moment I was stuck here to score points with hot air? Spend that bootlicking time dreaming up solid ops! Once you're dead, what good are your brownie points?
"Anyway. Summing up the discussion so far: Even combining all army and navy forces, we can't plug every hole. And a full-frontal push across the entire front is off the table... right?"
"Y-yes, Your Excellency... Even conscripting locals is tough since most are uncooperative with the governorate. The only stable source is the homeworld... but that's millions of light-years away, and those filthy Jews have their fleets blockading it on a galactic scale..."
"Enough about those dirty Jews. Never get tired of how unlucky they make everything sound. What's their problem with us expanding a few colonies? Why blockade the whole damn galaxy over it?"
The Andromeda Galaxy was bigger than the Milky Way to begin with, and the fact they could seal it tight spoke volumes about the power of the Jew-run Cates Empire. No wonder conspiracy theories about Jewish puppet masters swirled. From what they'd pulled, it wasn't conspiracy—it was 100% fact.
No point dwelling on forces and funds beyond our grasp—it just soured the mood. Closé shifted focus, mulling over the proposed plans and intel in his head.
Defending a single star system with dozens to hundreds of troops? No fixing that. If the idiots hadn't alienated the locals so badly, we could've conscripted more collaborators to bolster numbers. Too late now.
"In the end, the new defenses we'll build won't differ much from the old ones. We can fall back preemptively to advantageous spots, but the principle of securing key star systems and warp lanes can't be compromised."
"As Your Excellency says, better to stick to that principle than revise it. We've plugged holes that way so far—better than trying area control and stirring chaos..."
"That'll do. Now, let's discuss troop densities at each defense point, which units to withdraw where, and which to use for offensives. Even when we go on the attack, it'll have to be localized ops rather than all-out—but better than nothing."
Unable to expand from points (key systems) and lines (warp lanes) into full territorial control. Gazing at the Lucid forces' reality in Atlantis territory inevitably recalled the Japanese army: charging to devour vast China alone, losing their ground forces there, then waving the white flag after two American spear-thrusts.
How long could the Lucid forces—even with lower density—hold without being pushed out across this galaxy far vaster than China? Their naval edge wouldn't last forever... not with the Cates Empire, America's equal, backing Atlantis...?
Sorry, seals, but you're gonna have to sacrifice for me. Didn't you say your navy takes fewer losses than our army? Time to play meat shield. Closé harbored unbefitting thoughts for a garrison naval deputy commander. Because his true identity was a spy the Lucid army brass had embedded in the navy.
The Lucid Empire was so fractured between army and navy—practically two countries—that they shared zero intel. Spies infiltrating to steal info or sabotage ops were commonplace.
Closé had earned high marks for endurance, not flinching even when the "seals" called the army "land crabs." That's why army high command tapped him for the job.
The current prime minister back home was army stock, so ties to the central government should've been decent... but the Atlantis expedition's disastrous failure had the government—and even his army handlers—cut him loose, leading to this mess.
With a "seal" like Baltic as governor-general and top commander, relations with home would never dramatically improve. Even if army-navy bad blood thawed and the governorate cozied up to central gov, no aid was coming anyway.
How much had the home economy tanked since getting stuck in Atlantis? Other colonies tanked too... Roughly 90% gone, right? Man, blowing 90% of economic power in under 30 years—(even if it's my country) Lucid Empire is such a disaster!
In that state, if the governorate tried squeezing taxes from colonies to ship home—instead begging for cash—it was obvious what screams we'd get. Closé had long given up on home help.
No matter what, the government started this war on Atlantis without even declaring it—why am I the one cleaning up their shit after they cut me loose...? Fuck... Only way out is using these seal bastards as meat shields to escape somehow.
But Closé wouldn't join the "filthy" seals under Baltic in a Titanic sinking out of spite toward the brass and gov that abandoned him. Too many years of mutual enmity to laugh it off now.
Reorganize defenses for breathing room, form offensive units to pin Grozny's eyes, toss in the seals as meat shields—that should buy time to save his own skin.
Make haste slowly. Even in the tiger's den, stay sharp and you'll escape. No matter how fucked our forces are, they can't be so hopeless they can't buy time for one man to slip away. With that resolve, Closé's chaired meeting dragged on for several more hours.