309 Homecoming
A cadre of twenty occupied the Pegasus on the voyage to Nekh, consisting of Donovan, Diana, Titanyana, Petunia, Leno, Kayes, Cayzi, the six Nekh learning to pilot, two Nekh accompanying Leno as Titanyana's guard, and five bishops to work under Kayes' direction. This would constitute a considerable quantity of the total personnel capacity of a galley, however this number occupied just under two percent of the Pegasus' design capacity of 1062 - a number that did not even consider the passengers sleeping on the floor or in shifts. That much wasn't surprising to either Donovan or Diana, or Titanyana now that she was becoming familiar with the scale of prior Terran industrial capacity, however it was a radical difference to the capacity expectations of everyone else.
The Holifanians were more shocked by the vehicle parked in the maintenance bay. It was more like a weapon of war than a transport craft in their eyes, the tracks and remotely controlled autocannon certainly capable of providing such an impression. In reality it had no more armor than a construction vehicle and the autocannon was limited to a shameful 250 rounds. The Land and Water Vehicle (LVW) was Donovan's solution to personnel and material transportation as well as reconnaissance in hostile environments, if a slow and maintenance intensive one, so the cargo trucks and rovers would be seeing more frequent use.
In fact, the rover would be seeing use immediately.
"The engine is rather silent."
"It doesn't have one." More of a minivan than a coupe, the larger rover could seat eight people if cargo wasn't carried, and so the main diplomatic cohort of Terrans, Nekh, and Bishop Kayes set off from the back of the Pegasus and towards the massive city wall. "It uses electricity, reducing maintenance and allows it to charge in the sun. If need be, I can also just replace the batteries. Don't get me wrong, the downsides are there, but a fuel compartment would have taken up more space on the Pegasus."
"Fascinating."
Donovan considered himself fortunate that there wasn't a gearbox or competing traffic. He was skilled in a great many things, and had knowledge of much more, but he hadn't ever learned to drive properly. Given time he would probably be able to figure out the rules of the road and what not, but he probably would have had Diana drive otherwise.
"When we get to the gate, let me out to greet them." Titanyana had been granted the honor of shotgun, her attention split between her home outside and the various screens and buttons on display.
"Right by those spires, right?" The wall surrounding the city featured occasional turrets and bastions, places for lookouts and archers to rest, however the big towers were an aberration in the otherwise consistent pattern. "What purpose do they serve?"
"If the gates are ever breached by an invader, we collapse them." Leno leaned into the space between seats, evidently just as curious as Titanyana and disregarding Donovan's instruction to wear his seatbelt. "Anyone underneath them at the time will get crushed, and the rubble will cover the gate. It is by no means a perfect defense, but the practice has bought us precious days in the past."
Castle assault tactics were something Donovan had given a pass over, however he did not engage them with any degree of seriousness. Those bastions of stone fared terribly against the most basic of field artillery, so he wasn't particularly interested in the traditional methods of approach. He had given castle defense tactics even less attention, because he didn't consider them to be too different from other fortifications, like trenches or bunkers. Even if it was purely academic, this was still an incredibly interesting method of defense.
". . . the were told to expect us, right?" He couldn't make out faces, but there was certainly activity on top of the wall.
- - - - -
Donovan noted the lack of foot traffic as they approached the wall. They hadn't parked the Pegasus too far away from a road, it hadn't taken more than a minute to find their way onto it, but the lack of people coming in and out of what was likely the most populated city on the planet was cause for worry. Granted this could have been nothing more than a consequence of timing or location, they just arrived at a less popular gate during a low traffic time, but Donovan didn't think so.
"I will go talk to them." Titanyana struggled with the door for a few seconds as Donovan came to a halt, not quite understanding how to unlock it. "Um, Leno?"
"Right behind you." Leno and the guards slid open the side door and exited, taking up positions in an arc behind her. They didn't close the door, something Diana expressed some degree of annoyance at, however the weather outside wasn't bad enough to warrant the effort to remedy their error.
The four walked to a point about a hundred feet or so from the gate. Donovan didn't know the proper protocol for admission, but he imagined this placed a proper amount of distance between them, the wall, and the 'invading force'. He wouldn't be able to hear them from this distance, but he didn't think he needed to. Watching the man descend from one of the towers in a basket was quite amusing though, tough defensive protocols would always have downsides.
"How much time went into building those walls?" In the absence of progress, Donovan decided to indulge in his curiosity. "I can't imagine moving all that stone was an easy feat."
"I can't speak for the construction, but any stone used in the city is transported by river. If I remember correctly, the wall itself is dirt packed between two stone barriers, so they probably didn't have to transport as much as you think." Petunia, relaxing in the very back of the vehicle, answered in a lazier manner than usual.
"Huh. Do you have measures to counter sappers?"
"Pardon?"
"Sappers. Enemy combatants who dig under fortifications?"
"I-I'm sorry, I don't know enough about combat to give an answer for that."
"Armies generally won't make use of sappers unless they have a sorcerer." Kayes filled in for Petunia, moving up into Leno's spot for easier conversation. "Excavation is an exhausting affair, so unless they have someone who can remove large quantities of materiel in an efficient manner a siege or assault is a more effective use of manpower. You can only bring so many people and supplies with you, after all."
"Oh." Donovan almost made a comment on the abysmal physical stamina of the people here, but thought better of it. He was beginning to think the difference wasn't so much a negative attribute everyone else was saddled with, but a positive trait his people were blessed with. "I suppose that makes sense. The examples I have to work with only deal with transportation between terrestrial locations."
". . . was it that common a tactic in your history?"
"Reasonably. I doubt it happened for every siege, but if winter or enemy reinforcements were coming and you needed a wall to come down it was an option. Certainly better than rushing a fortified position across an open field."
"That's psychotic."
"What is? Digging a hole?"
"The fact your people considered it reasonably efficient, yes. You'd be a madman to do something like that once, let alone multiple times."
"Well, we didn't have this fancy schmancy Split shit, so there weren't many options until we developed field artillery to a reasonable degree." Donovan waved a hand out in front of him, gesturing vaguely to the invisible substance that permeated reality. "Shit, even after artillery made castles obsolete, digging a hole underneath an obstacle or kill-zone is a great way to shake up a stalemate."
"Wait, you guys did this in an active combat zone?"
"Dirt is great at stopping bullets and blocking shrapnel. You guys dug trenches, didn't you?"
"A trench is not on the same level as a tunnel."
"You're right, it's negligible, especially when your frontline is a few hundred kilometers long and has been static for more than a year. If you've got five hundred kilometers of triple layer trenches along the frontlines, a few half kilometer long tunnels are a trivial investment for a shot at a breakthrough."
". . . five hundred kilometers?" Cayzi sounded like he was in a trance as he repeated Donovan's off-the-cuff statistic.
"Eyes on the road, Donny." Diana, who had been paying attention to the people outside, attempted to return Donovan's attention to the task at hand. "They seem to be waving us forward."
- - - - -
Donovan had initially expected some issue with pathfinding in the city. While not the heaviest vehicle, the batteries and stainless steel frame made the rover much heavier than any hand or horse powered carriage Nekh roads and bridges would reasonably be designed for. The same held true for his concerns about street width and turning radius, all of which could have been an issue if the Nekh weren't obsessed with infrastructure.
Two of these rovers could drive side by side with an appreciable amount of breathing room, this road clearly having been designed for serious traffic. Considering it was one of a select few roads leading to the outside this wasn't terribly surprising, but offshoot roads leading into the jungle of wood and stone seemed to have sufficient room for maneuvers.
"It's a holdover from when there were more people." Titanyana offered her commentary without prompting, sensing the curiosity in Donovan's gaze. "I always wanted to see what these roads would be like during the time of my ancestors, bustling and humming like the Veins. Nowadays almost two thirds of buildings are vacant."
"So you've lost two thirds of your population?"
"Huh? No! We haven't lost that many people . . . yet." The trepidation in her voice was palpable. "We've needed more people out in the fields and working on food acquisition to offset the loss of productivity caused by the worsening environment. We don't have enough excess to justify luxury professions anymore."
"Even then it's not enough." Leno offered an elaboration. "Food is rationed very carefully, and when possible we move people from locations with chronic shortages to more plentiful locations."
"So I imagine you've abandoned the more polar outposts, right?" Donovan assumed the less than favorable climate would preclude agricultural subsistence. This would make evacuation efforts easier, kind of, reducing the number of locations he needed to keep tabs on.
"No." Titanyana sounded both happy and sad about the prospect. "Well, not the coastal or riverine settlements. Fish are abundant there, and their hauls help offset agricultural labor lost to essential industries like mining and quarrying. I would say our fish farming projects have kept us going just as long as our agricultural expansions."
"Would that be because fish don't need as much Split to survive?" Cayzi, ever the inquisitive chap, wanted some more answers. "I mean, water doesn't hold nearly as much Split as air does, and they seem to do fine."
"That would be correct, young man." Leno, closer to Cayzi and in more of a position to turn around and face him, responded in lieu of Titanyana. "Every river above a certain size has dams placed in strategic locations to increase the amount of fish the waterway can sustain. A large body of water chest deep can sustain more people than an equivalent sized plot of land set aside for crops. Our ability to divert water from those reservoirs for irrigation and drinking purposes is also a great benefit, but ultimately secondary to the fish."
"I take it you also collapse them to dispatch encroaching invaders." Donovan needed no elaboration on the defensive application of such structures.
". . . when we need to." His phrasing suggested a willingness to perform such an action if necessary, but the tone implied a great deal of discomfort around the proposition. A dam break fell into the category of 'classic infrastructure catastrophes' alongside bridge collapses and slope failure.
"The, um, the waterways of the city are designed to allow migratory fish passage!" Titanyana tried her best to avoid the topic being brought to the fore. "They struggle with the dams a little, but they find a way."
"Oh, like salmon?" Diana spoke up in response to something that might be a cultural similarity. Anything she could parade as a shared experience would make integration and acceptance a little easier.
"Is that a type of fish?"
"Yes! One of the tastier ones, might I add. Some species would practically swim up waterfalls to find a mating ground."
"I can't say any of ours climb waterfalls, but they do travel a fair bit upstream to spawn. Then they die." Titanyana frowned. "We, uh, officially we discourage the consumption of fish corpses in favor of using them for livestock feed and bait, but we look the other way when food is scarce."
"Salmon were the same . . . I wonder if Nectar has a similar species somewhere."
"Well the climate and geography is similar to the Cascades, which is where most of the salmon hailed from, so it wouldn't surprise me if we had a run or two during the fall."
"How did you-"
"Diana, part of my job is to assess risks and plan for the future. Once we determined the region had surface level similarities to an environment on Terra, I did some research to see if other trends would be followed."
"Oh . . . is that the castle there?" Diana seemed desperate to change topic, not wanting to be embarrassed by her lack of knowledge on a subject she brought up. Truth be told, she knew what salmon tasted like and little else.
"Yes!" The view they got was brief, the rover passing over the bridge much faster than a carriage would have, however the castle atop a small hill in the direction of the city center could hardly be anything else. "That's . . . that's home."
Titanyana's excitement was quashed just as quickly as it sprouted. A portion of this quashing was surely due to being reminded of her family, but the biggest was undoubtedly the sight they were met with as the rover rounded the corner. A bonfire had been lit in the middle of the intersection up ahead, but it wasn't lit to indicate or celebrate her return. The burlap covered corpses stacked ten high along either side of the street was all the indication needed to determine this flame's utility.
"You don't have to watch." Donovan could tell it hadn't been this bad when she left by the pale tone her skin assumed.
"No." He sped up a little as they passed, the heat of the blaze tangible through the thin walls of the rover. "I need to see this."
Donovan looked over the burn crew. Most of them were emaciated, struggling to drag the bodies and logs into position, however there were a few healthy bodies. The lack of cat ears was all he needed to discern their identities.
"You can let me out here, Donovan." Kayes lifted himself out of his seat once more, positioning himself by the door. "I'll meet up with you at the castle."