Chapter Text
[Littorio]
Silence, so thick and heavy that she could feel it swirl around her, filled the trenches like fog. Reaching her hand out to stir the thick air, she felt it coil and writhe in protestation like a disturbed animal. It darted off towards the harbor as the first pounding note of artillery struck deep into its flank.
It didn’t surprise her. Two days had passed in much the same fashion. Three days ago, the Esercito di Napoli has ceased its lumbering march and had begun their siege.
The rumble of their own artillery responded, like it had for . It was all poking and prodding. She was reminded, distantly of fencing.
Unlike the last few days, the counter barrage grew and grew in intensity.
Something must be happening.
A shell struck near to the left of her, showering her and a few of the nearby troops with dirt. Their first instinct was to duck but, honestly, the Cannone da 149/23 that made up the primary Neapolitan artillery was nothing new for her. A 5.87in shell was not the smallest thing that had ever been shot at her, but it wasn’t remotely worrying. And she could skip a stone further than their 9km range. Hell, the 3in naval guns left over from 1916 they had cannibalized for their own battery managed 10.7km.
Men-at-arms at various states of readiness lined the long ditch, weary and wary eyes regarding her with nods, salutes, and other half-hearted acknowledgments. Officers were already waking up their units, fresh faces squinted in the drab light of the damp morning.
“Officer, report!”
“Ma’am! Lotta movement ‘cross the wire. Word from on high says to expect company.”
“It was bound to happen eventually. Thank you officer, good luck to you and your men!” Her tone was positively cheery despite the circumstances.
Or perhaps, because of them. Today, she might finally, finally, reclaim her pride.
She quickened her pace, though not too much. It wouldn’t do to seem panicked, or even remotely concerned. Cesare had coached her on how to act among the soldiery, but it wasn’t anything she hadn’t already mastered. The Signora di Smeraldo always strutted about like she was queen of the world!
She just… did it a little faster this time.
“Look alive, mi amico!” She grinned as she regarded the men around her. “This is a fine trench you’ve dug, those black powder-relics are nothing to fear!”
Without further delay, she turned and disappeared into what passed for her command post.
It was more like a dirt cave with a table and a map, with one lantern, a chair, a backpack radio and a few cots, one of which was set apart and had a ramshackle curtain made of tent canvas. This is where she had lived for two days, with a few of her new officers.
Only one of them was in now, with the rest having gone to their stations up in the forward trench. He had the broad build and tanner-than-normal skin of a farmer, no doubt he had been one a month ago. At the end of his twenties, he was barely too young for his rank, marking him as one of the new and untested men called up in haste. Cesare had taken a liking to him during training for reasons she hoped would become evident as the day went on.
Maggiore Lucchesi was a generally even keeled man and was doing an admirable job at keeping a straight face now, though the color was slowly draining from his face as he flinched whenever a shell struck too close.
“What do you think, Lucchesi, has the map given up any of its secrets?” She joked, without any hint of mockery in her tone.
“The longer I stare at it, the more I think about it, you were wrong to place most of the veterans and artillery on the southern flank with Cesare. Look, Barese… or Bari, since you’re Genovese. It’s a stone’s throw… hell you’d be able to hear the church towers if Taranto’s weren’t so loud. It’s got a port, decent roads... you can take the northern rail to Foggia, and then across the mountains to Napoli. Made the trip myself once or twice. Bari… the bulk of the attack will come from Bari, and we will be right in it’s path…” He grew paler as he spoke, and a shell impacted nearby as if to punctuate his words, with some loose dirt falling from the ceiling onto the map.
She chose her next words carefully and with the knowledge that, outside of Veneto and the others, she had told the most- arguably more than she should have- to Lucchesi.
“All of that is true, but you needn’t fear that. We are where we are because we knew the route the army was going to take, and Impero’s scouting flights confirm it. They’re rallying from a military base in Central Campania.”
“Assume I’m right and she’s wrong, what happens?”
“Nothing. We’re what stands between the Esercito di Napoli and Taranto. That fact won’t change.”
“We’re going to die here…” Lucchesi uttered in a soft voice unbefitting if a man of his stature.
“No, Lucchesi. If you are right, you’re about to join me in the history books as the Maggiore who commanded one of the greatest defenses in Sardegnian history!”
“Or… they’ll have to dig me out of this bunker…”
“You’ll see the family farm again. I’ll get you, and everyone I can, through this. This may be your first battle, but it isn’t mine.”
And I’m going to win this time!
“The barrage is letting up, can’t you feel it?”
“Then the hour has come at last!”
As if to punctuate her words, a great war cry rose from outside growing louder and louder as it competed with the Mezzogiornan artillery to be heard.
Without waiting for Lucchesi, she sped back into the cool morning air and joined the throng of soldiers rushing down the connecting trenches to the front line.
Be visible, these men have never fought but they’re willing to fight for you. They have to see you, or they’ll shatter like glass. The words of Cesare echoed.
When she arrived, the officer from before was on the edge of the trench, riflemen lined up to either side of him, weapons presenting a bristling wall against the world beyond them. They shot nervous looks at their leader, the field in front of them, each other, and now, her. The officer must have felt the mood shift at her arrival, as he turned to her and stepped back from his perch. His outstretched had offered her a pair of binoculars.
She waved him away, pointing to her own eyes with a mirthless smile as they were encased in a phantasmal blue third eyelid. Even unintegrated with her rigging, she carried certain benefits of being designed for war at long range.
Across no-mans-land, hundreds if not thousands of men advanced toward them; a sea of matte grey uniforms rolled and shifted. The earth trembled at their footfalls, drowning out even the thunder of their own guns. Artillery shells fell among them, and four or five men fell with each. But there were too many of them for it to matter. The grey sea swallowed its losses and moved onward.
For the second time in her life, she felt small. And if a battleship could feel small, what did her men feel? For their sake, she shrugged off her awe. The whole reason she was here and not on the bridge of her ship was to hold her untested army together; it would not do to flinch in the face of the enemy!
“Ha! They must be terrified!” She raised her voice over the rumble of guns.
“Ma’am?”
“Look at them all! They must know that each of us is worth five of those whipped dogs the senate calls soldiers! Steel yourselves, true Sardegnian patriots! Trust yourselves, trust your officers, and trust me. As much as I trust you!”
As she said this, she stood up to her impressive full height and leaned back against the edge of the trench, exposing half her back to the oncoming army.
The officer looked up at her, horror met faux-smug as he began barking orders to keep the enemy back. “Open fire, keep them back!”
It was an unfathomably stupid, spur of the moment idea. She preferred to call it ‘audacious.’
Moments later, the gunnery line she had inserted herself into began its reasonably paced fusillade. Her show of faith appeared to have had its effect; fear was largely gone from the faces of her riflemen, even if now she was thanking her designers for her green hair with every hostile bullet that snapped passed her ears. Some camouflage was better than nothing, unarmored as she was.
The intermittent popping of gunfire across the whole line began after; the rattling of machine guns and snapping of rifle shots joined the boom of artillery and the shouts of the onrushing men. And, curiously, the rumble of engines. She turned to face this oncoming mechanical anomaly.
Scattered amongst the Neapolitans were several L3 Tanks in various configurations, squat hulls sparking with each ineffective bullet that struck their armor as they trundled towards them, twin machine guns blaring as they targeted the Mezzogiornan positions.
The effects were felt immediately: off to her left, a machine gun went silent. A throng of Neapolitans rose from the ground around the tank and rushed the stricken gun crew.
The same scene was playing down the whole the trench, from what she could glimpse through the chaos of officers barking orders and men surging through the line.
Taking in the panorama before her as crosshairs flicked over her eyes paused only briefly. There were just so many people to keep track of, so much going on.
The scale of it…
Naval battles weren’t small; a typical ship could have a crew of hundreds if not thousands. But a ship was one body, one actor, one thing to worry about. On some level, her brain was a combat computer forced into a situation it was never meant for and fought hard to keep her mind from fogging up. A warship rarely fought ten other warships, let alone a hundred or a thousand. But that did not mean she lacked the means to do so.
Far away, sitting lazily in the ocean, her ship’s guns began to turn. It was tragic that she could not enjoy the protection of its hull, but her rigging could never have carried enough ammunition inland to support her through the day. And they needed her firepower more than she needed protection.
A full salvo of massive, high explosive shells dove into the roiling mass of men and machines before detonating among them, removing whole squads at a time and destroying any tank unfortunate enough to be supporting them. The shockwave sent men diving to the floor, voluntarily or otherwise. But, lost in euphoria she hardly noticed at first.
It felt good for fire her guns again, it felt good reduce the amount of things she had to keep track of. It felt good to feel powerful. It felt good to be out from behind a desk or some stuffy room full of maps and bickering.
She fired again, and again. Instincts told her the attackers resolve was starting to fray from the earth-shaking bombardment.
And then it snapped: one man began to run, than a few more, then a squad at a time. For a moment, she stood alone. Her chest swelled with exhilaration, her blood coursed with adrenaline, and she laughed as she came down off the unsustainable high.
“Back to your masters, dogs!” She shouted, though none of them were left to hear her.
Wearing a wide smile, she turned and began pulling her men back to their feet, awe and relief plastered across their faces.
“I must see to the defense elsewhere, but do not fear! My guns have seen you through the worst of it.”
She missed the looks of awe and fear at her display of power as, she strutted off down the trench, sword held high and gleaming in the light of the rising sun.
A sun that seemed to follow her, resting upon helmets and gleaming gun barrels as her army presented a shining wall of steel and spirit against an enemy which threatened to destroy them all. The sun graced their attackers similarly in a reflective tide that reminded her of the noonday sea on a cloudless day, their tanks as the shining ships on the sea of men.
Conserving as much ammunition for the counterattack as she could, she aimed only for their tanks and armored cars. The battle was truly under way now; she could hear the shouting of both their officers and the Neapolitans, encouraging their men to hold fast, encouraging their men to push forward, trying desperately to be heard over the cacophony of weapons fire.
Littorio’s shells enforced a temporary, deafening silence wherever and whenever they stuck, the shockwaves from the blast striking down any noise that rose to resist their own relentless advance.
Like before, men threw themselves down on instinct. Like before, she pulled them to their feet with a wordless smile and moved on.
Down the trench she advanced, rallying the men and providing fire support as needed. They were doing well, she reasoned. But more and more often she found herself stepping over men instead of pulling them to their feet. Littorio could not be everywhere she was needed.
Up ahead, the line had wavered, if not broken. A Neapolitan charge had reached the trench. While the L3 that had created the breach looked to have been disabled with a grenade, there was still sporadic fighting in and around the gap.
Littorio strode past a squad of men firing down the trench, desperately trying to reclaim their position.
“To me!” Crosshairs flicked once more across her eyes, the impact of another 15in shell shook the earth beyond the trench line, throwing the attackers into disarray.
The Mezzogiornans, sensing their opportunity, surged forward and met the oncoming tide of grey- rifles, bayonets or improvised clubs in hand.
Littorio did not immediately involve herself in the vicious, close-quarters fight to retake this segment of the trench line. In fact, she was briefly appalled by what she saw as men rushed to either side of her.
Blood spattered on rifles as wielders took point-blank shots or plunged bayonets into flesh. Clunks, clangs and cries sounded as blunt weapons crunched bones or crashed against metal helmets and rifle barrels raised in desperate defense.
Where was the nobility in it? Where was the honor, or drama, or theatrics? Where were the unspoken rules of conduct? Where was the dignity, or the glory she was accustomed to on the waves?
Is this what war is off the high sea?
She shook herself to her senses in time to hear her troops call for her aid as another squad of Neapolitans poured down into the breach or readied themselves to fire down into the growing melee.
Steeling herself, she applied what she knew, adopting a duelist’s stance and stepping into the brawl. But her long sword was an awkward weapon in such close quarters, there was hardly and room for proper swings.
Sword met bayonets as she picked her first foe. Uncertain brown eyes met hers down the spine of a rifle held like a spear. He was young, and obviously barely knew what he was doing, just like most of people fighting. But he had reach over her, and was smart enough to know that kept him alive.
The anxious man took a stab at her, an ill conceived attack born of stress and adrenaline, which she directed harmlessly to the side. She tensed herself in the milliseconds before her own counterattack. It would bisect him at the shoulder, it would make him drop his rifle, it would… be unnecessary.
Another man struck her quarry across the head with a shovel, and as he fell, struck him twice more.
The flash of anger at being robbed of her prey mixed with the disgust the animalistic savagery of her ally, but neither had time to express themselves before she was launching herself forward to protect her erstwhile savior from another man with a heavy-looking knife.
Blood spattered across her left cheek, she had no idea whose, and by luck alone did she dodge a wicked spiked mace that would have raked her side. Wielded with both hands, her sword carved clean through the midsection of the knifeman, carrying though the swing until it cleaved through the maceman’s arm, biting into and through his ribs.
“Grazie…” her brother-in-arms panted.
That was all they had time for before a wave of heat washed over them. She threw herself to the ground as a stream of liquid fire filled the air. It did not discriminate between any that were caught in its path, and the air soon filled with screams of agony and the putrid scent of burning flesh.
A few meters away, another L3 had advanced upon them while they were too busy fighting for their lives to notice. Unlike the previous one, it sported a large square tank atop it’s chassis. Its purpose was clear to her instantly: it was carrying the fuel for its flamethrower.
Lifting her face from the mud and blood, a second tank was visible scouring the trench in front of her: she was being hemmed in.
Once more, crosshairs flicked over her vision. Once more, 15in shells sailed through sky at a staggering 560 meters per second. Only then did it occur to her how close her targets were.
Firing from only 20 kilometers away, she barely had time to grit her teeth before the shells hit. The pair of nearly 885kg high-explosive shells shook the earth as they struck.
It had been a rushed shot, neither were direct hits, but they were close enough. A bone rattling pair of explosions shook the earth.
Too close!
Her arm rose to protect her as she was bracketed by shards of metal, dirt and sticky, burning fuel. In the same instant, she was thrown back against the wall of the trench as it began collapsing into itself- onto her!
Figlio di puttana…
Littorio launched herself up out of the trench to avoid being trapped, spun around and for the first time since the beginning she had a moment to truly see no-man’s land as she caught her breath.
“So, what do you think?” Solari’s unwelcome voice echoed in her thoughts.
She took in the battlefield, ignoring the blood trickling from adrenaline-numbed, fresh cuts and the sticky flames working their way over her filthy skin and filthier uniform as her eyes swept over no-mans-land.
“You have no right to judge me!” She responded to the voice in her head.
Pale, lifeless faces looked on at her in judgment from where they had fallen in the soil, or gotten caught in barbed wire, or crawled into shell craters.
Look what your glory has cost us!
“Shut up… you brought this in yourselves, all of you!”
Corpses wore the phantasmal guise of men she recognized from the hospital after Calabria.
“They fight for you, what else!?” The ghost of Cesare scolded her.
“And I for them!” She waved away the dreadnought, and was rewarded with a surprising jolt of pain.
Grabbing her arm reflexively, Littorio flinched as her fingers crunched burnt skin against steel bones.
Damn… Veneto is going to-
Something tore through her stomach, and the snap of an anti-tank gun pierced her ears.
The Battleship’s vision blurred and refocused as she staggered back. Her eyes flicked across the horizon. What they found was another L3, this time with a single long gun.
Her guns fired, and it’s lifespan began ticking down.
A second round struck the left side of her hip and she fell to one knee, feeling her leg threatening to dislocate at the blow.
More than one?
Her question was answered as a third round struck her square in the chest. She felt it tear up her insides as it pierced her ribs and painted the ground behind her with a spattering of red and bright, fluorescent blue.
The emerald maiden collapsed, clutching the fresh wound. She didn’t need to see it to know it was bad.
Instead, as she fought to stay conscious she ground her head to bring the area she guessed her adversaries were hiding into view.
“Arivaderci, Bastardo…”
_____
[Impero]
Light blue; as far as she could see to either side of her.
The carrier laid back in her seat, staring at the sky. It was cold so high up, but her long coat kept her warm enough to comfortably nap. Staying awake had, by far, been her biggest struggle today.
With a long sigh, sat up and regarded the instruments of her aircraft. Fuel was fine. Speed was fine. Altitude was… probably a little high.
She slumped gently against her flight stick, and her Re. 2001 slumped with her. As a pair, they lazily drifted back down below the clouds.
Far, far below her the ants played in the dirt. Thousands of them swarmed across green fields that grew less green with each hour. They wore uniforms sure, but they all looked the same to her. And they both had the same flag flying above both their anthills.
Off in the distance, a great metal centipede worked its was from west to east, kicking up a larger and larger dust cloud as it went.
Must be the Sicilians…
That sounded right, from what she remembered. But it wasn’t important who it was; their advance meant the battle was almost over, and she could finally stop protecting her spotters from the nonexistent interceptors.
It was all so boring, but the memory of being dragged from a wreck in the middle of the desert kept her from dozing off.
Scanning the air, her flight group- Pride Squadron- seemed to be enjoying itself. Spotting for artillery must have seemed more interesting than desert patrols over the endless, featureless sands they were accustomed to.
It was almost cute watching those four tip their wings to see the ground as they frantically checked their maps before shouting about grid squares into their headsets.
It was certainly more cute than the showers of shells and slicing shrapnel that chased their shadows across the ground as they flew overhead.
But that was the perk of being Sardegna’s most brilliant daughter. When she took off her gloves at the end of they day, she had never needed to do more than shake the dust off.
<<Looks whose decided to join us!>>
<<Pride-1 finally got bored of being bored!>>
<<How long before she gets bored of being bored of being bored?>>
<<Might as well just strafe them now, we’ve already dealt with the big targets!>>
Impero didn’t care enough to roll her eyes. Idle chatter was a habit left over from long flights over nothing: it was their own way of fighting boredom.
Impero rolled her aircraft, taking in as much of the battlefield as she could.
<<I’ll let Veneto know we’re moving down the line.>>
Without waiting for a response, she reached down and fiddled with her radio.
<<Impero to ground; there’s nothing here anymore, and your friends are ahead of schedule. Moving on down the line.>>
<<Affirmative, Cavour’s battery will be thrilled to have you.>>
Fiddling with her radio again, she addressed her Squadron.
<<Alright, make your own ways east.>>
<<Think there’s anything over there? Why leave the main fight just to go sightseeing when we could go back early and get some drinks?>>
<<There’s an art to being lazy, Pride-4. Have you learned nothing from our Lioness?>>
<<O teacher, teach me>> the voice of Pride-2 mocked over the radio.
<<Lesson one; shut up.>> She cracked a small smile.
<<Then who would keep you awake?>>
As they flew northeast above the trenches, the ants got thicker and thicker; scurrying through craters and the wreckage of more vehicles than she had seen all day.
<<Commander Cavour, Pride squadron here, ready to provide targets.>>
No response.
<<Cavour, do you read me?>>
Again, nothing.
<<Bastionne Littorio, Impero here. what is the situation?>>
No response.
Brow furrowed, she began dropping altitude, tilting her wing and scanning the trenchlines.
Corpses and the hulls of destroyed tanks told stories of fatal last stands against overwhelming odds. The turreted shield of Napoli fluttered in the breeze over what must once have been the command bunker, it’s yellow-over red coloring a sunlit sky over a field of blood.
“The main attack was here.” She spoke only to herself.
The battle was still ongoing, the reserve trench wavered but yet stood. They had not lost.
<<Pride squadron, there’s no artillery to spot for. Weapons free>>
<<Look at all… we don’t have the weapons to fight a whole army, Boss…>>>
<<We don’t have to. Just show both our friends and our enemies that we’re here, and nothing is getting rid of us.>>
With that, she rolled her plane onto its back and dove. Down, down, down.
The Re. 2001 groaned as it plummeted, but she knew it’s wings wouldn’t snap: it was made of her, and she was made of sterner stuff than a little wind.
Impero pulled out of her dive just in time to rake the captured support trench with near ground-level machinegun fire. Many soldiers were already diving for cover. Many were too slow.
With prodigal rudder control, she flicked her crosshairs along the top of the trench, correcting for its curves and angles as she went.
To her count, she felled eight in the first pass. Impero smiled to herself as the ants scattered. A hot bath filled her imagination as she rocketed back up into the sky.
Her aircraft rolled over again and dove down, hungry eyes tracing her intended path. Bullets flew, ants fell, she yawned.
<<You four, report.>>
<<They’re like fish in a barrel!>>
<<I almost feel sorry for em…>>
<<You make it look easy Pride-1>>
<<Bet you can’t shoot that flag off its pole!>>
<<Drinks are on you if I do.>> Impero challenged.
<<You’re on.>>
Perhaps it was in poor taste to be playing games in the middle of a battle. But battles are won by morale, and that was reason enough to mess with their flag.
And if she was out here anyway, why not show off?
Her objective clear, she swung back around. For the first time today she began paying attention to what she was doing.
There it was, fluttering in the breeze. So languid, so helpless: the profane ensign of their treacherous foe.
Treachery… as though any of us have kept to our oaths…
What mattered was that that red and yellow shield was in the wrong spot: it would look much better as a wing ornament.
She flipped her aircraft up on its side moments before shearing her wing off the flagpole and struck the flag itself dead center. The impact tore the fabric and, looking down her left wing, she was gratified that it had stuck.
But then she glimpsed something resting in the background of her view as she sped by. Something familiar, and for the first time since she got her blood back, it went cold.
<<Impossible...>>
<<I thought so too bu->>
She pulled straight up, tore off her headset, threw back the canopy and kicked herself out into the air.
The wind filled her cloak as she fell and her hair streamed behind her as she twisted her body to avoid smacking against her plane’s tail.
Her feet struck the ground hard, her body shuddered as much as her ‘heart’ did.
Before her, through a pockmarked storm of broken earth, her eyes followed a trail of bright blue liquid that seemed to pulse and radiate energy to the burnt out hulk of a tank. There, surrounded by fragmented bodies, torn metal and discarded weapons was her sister.
She had been shredded, her skin destroyed by shrapnel, bullets, and stab wounds. One of her legs had nearly been detached. She had bled all there was to bleed; even her wisdom cube had mostly drained, almost torn in half, visible through a gaping hole in her chest.
Her more intact hand still tightly clutched her sword; determination or rigor mortis? Crosshairs still faintly danced across her eyes; did she yet live, or were these the sparks of a dead machine stuck on repeat?
“Impossible.”
She knelt and pinched out the still smoldering flames working their way up her sister’s hair, what little remained. Tilting her stricken sister’s head back, she stared at those faded red eyes locked in a defiant agony.
Her fingers burned against her sister’s skin as a flood of feedback coursed through them as theory met practice.
I know what a Kansen is better than anyone else on earth. I know what it’s like to have everything that makes you you torn out. I know what it’s like to have your soul ripped from your chest. I know how fix you.
She dragged her sister’s body up off the ground, drew her up into her arms and began to carry her ruined form back to friendly lines. Impero grit her teeth as her own skin began to split. Fresh cuts began to weep blood down her perfect skin. From each new phantom cut a pulse of blue light shot down her veins into Littorio.
Impero staggered, almost collapsing as she felt part of her wisdom cube shift from her in an attempt to stabilize Littorio. She felt memories and experiences begin to merge into her as her essence propped up Littorio’s.
“You and I… are about to grow closer… than anyone would ever want…”
Banquets, music, the distant echo of laughter, and the flavor of wines she had never tasted slid into her like a breeze slipping through the cracks in a doorframe.
Shoving away the little parts of Littorio that were trying to equalize with her, she reached around in her fragmenting mind and found her discarded aircraft crumpled in no man’s land; not an actionable solution.
So, she reached around in what was left of Littorio, and was able to reach all the way to her ships guns. Even if she was a carrier now, she had once been a battleship. That had to count for something…
People were starting to notice her, perhaps she should have ditched the bright white cloak. She willed Littorio’s guns to fire with all her soul as rifle rounds began to snap towards her.
I am brilliant!
Seconds later the rounds hit, and she was gratified when they struck close enough to force her targets to dive for cover. Not accurate at all, but they had no way to know that.
She fired Littorio’s guns again and again. They blew a hole through the enemy lines with volume of fire transcending the need for precision, and when reinforcements began taking shots at her from behind, she was relived by the growing sound of aircraft engines.
Pride squadron had read the room, and they were covering her retreat. Once more, gunfire scythed through anyone who popped out of cover for long enough to take a shot, while battleship shells pounded the earth they hid behind.
It was slow going, but she forced her fracturing body down into the shell shocked trench, stepping over what was left of her would be attackers.
With every minute, she knew this gap between armies might close and envelop her. There were still too many of them behind her to truly be stopped, but maybe, just maybe, her wingmen would slow them down enough.
The jagged path to the reserve trench was difficult to navigate. Bodies piled where optimistic assaults had met desperate stands. Stinking, wet earth stuck and sucked at her feet as she staggered though a losing battle.
A rifle cracked behind her, and shouting voices seemed to come from all around.
She picked up her pace, as well as she could. Stepping around a final corner, she came face to face with a prepared position.
Her intuition threw her to the side as a torrent of bullets dug into the dirt behind where she was standing.
“Hold your fire you idiots! You want her to mistake us for them!? Haven’t you been paying attention?! It’s alright Kansen… come on out. Where the hell did you… you… is that Littorio?”
She stepped into the open, and was faced by a broad, tan man whose name she would almost certainly forget.
“Enough of her.”
“We have to get her to-”
“You will do nothing.”
“But… surely…”
“Point me to the command bunker.”
“Back by the artillery dugout, it isn’t far. Cavour took command after…”
“Good enough.” She cut him off for a final time, and shoved through the defenders.
_______
[Oriani]
“General… you’re not gonna save them?”
“No. We won't get there in time, we're barely in time to set up a defense here and Our position is too precarious to trade any more lives poorly.”
She and the general watched, one through a camera and the other through binoculars, as the encirclement of General Veccelio’s army was washed away by the Sicilians. Oriani couldn’t understand how the general could just abandon his friends so… so easily!
“So we’re just gonna sit here?!”
“Yes. These great mountains are the only thing that stands between them and Napoli. They do not have the men and equipment to wrest them from me, and they cannot bypass us in force because we threaten Taranto. We will grind them down, one assault after the next. Week after week, month after month, year after year if need be, until they come to terms.”
“How am I supposed to write about that!? That doesn’t sound heroic, or glorious, or big and impressive. That just sucks…”
“Yes. Yes it does. If you lack the stomach, I could arrange for your transportation to any loyal city in the Empire...”
"No! I'll... I'll find some way to spin it..."