The Three Continents: War in the North

Prologue: Welcome to the front

WIP

         Early morning sunlight peered in through the drawn blinds of a house in the capital city of Slesar, unnoticed by a man sitting at a workbench. Working intently with welding goggles drawn and sparks flying from a small device that seems like a box with curved horns rising out of the top. At the top of the box, a twisted wire passes between two balls affixed to the tips of the horns. Inside, wires and capacitors crisscross the innards, forming bizarre and intricate patterns around small rounded pits with softly glowing sigils carved into them.

"Stayed up all night working again?" John asked the man
"Job's tonight, got a lot of work to do." The man replied without looking up from the wiring of the box.
"Doesn't mean you can't have fun, everyone else got the disguises on and went for drinks." John replied, leaning against the doorframe.
"I don't drink-"
"Yes you do, you just drink shit that ignites when exposed to flame." John interrupted
"I was going to say that I don't drink in bars. Close the door, I've still got a lot of work to do."

John sighs and shrugs before leaving the man to his work, closing the door behind him. There was no point in trying to argue with William once he set himself to work. He would work himself to death someday if he didn't take the time to rest and take care of himself as well as he cared for his machines, John thought to himself as he rejoined the group in the main room of the building.

"Still at it?" Asked a blonde woman in torn military fatigues.
"Of course he is. Never takes a break until he's finished or the damn thing blows up in his face." John replied with a hint of irritation in his voice.
"Well that's ta be expected innit? Man knows what he's good at and does it well." Said a red haired man from the corner of the room, carefully cleaning and examining an immaculate revolver with the eye that isn't covered by the large bandage wrapped around his head. His thick accent stands out from the other speakers almost as much as his fiery hair does.
"Any idea how long it'll be before he's done with it? The raid's tonight." The woman asked.
"It's done now." William said, entering the room and pulling the goggles away from his eyes.

The trio turned to look at the older man who had just entered the room. Despite the fact that he was only approaching his thirties, the man seemed to carry a great weight upon his shoulders. His face was already beginning to show lines in his brow from years of squinting at small and intricate mechanisms. His skin showed the signs of wear from the intense cold and harsh winds in the northern nation of Slesar, and his dark black hair was already showing the first few grey hairs around his temples. Despite this, the arms that were revealed by the sleeveless tunic he wore were toned and hard, with clearly defined muscles from years of working with machines and forges. His hands were calloused and bandaged, and on his left arm he wore a curious bronze armguard. But one of his most striking features was the long, jagged scar that began at his left temple and crossed his entire face to the bottom of his right jawbone. His left eye was closed, and he quickly replaced an eyepatch that bore several small lenses on the face. Twisting a knob on its side, a faint whirring is heard as one lens moves to the center of the device. William sighed, stretching to pop his tired joints and wiped some sweat away from his brow.

"That was fast," The woman said to him, "didn't you just start working on that yesterday?"
"It wasn't difficult to make and I don't sleep often anyway." William replied with a tired smile.
"Thas not healthy mate." The red haired man interjected. "What if you get sick or something like that? We can' exactly take you to a clinic for a checkup."
"Then you'll be happy that I've completed my work and you won't need to worry about me for a while." William responded flatly.
"Enough chatter. Just explain what exactly it is you made Wil." John interrupted before the man can reply.

"This," William said as he held up a small box with ball-tipped horns protruding from one end, "is a remote transmitter." He paused, looking at the trio with an expectant look before sighing and shaking his head.

"What this will do is send a signal through the air to this receiver." He said as he held up a second, smaller box that seemed to be softly humming. The box seemed to be made of a bronze colored metal and stood on four sharp prongs, with a similar ball-tipped horn extending from the top. "Once it receives the signal, it will immediately activate whatever device it is connected to regardless of what it is. Doors will open or close, cars will start or stop, and explosives will be deactivated," he paused for a moment, "or detonate."

"Well that sounds incredible, but will it actually work?" The woman asked, hopping down off the counter she was sitting on and reaching for the remote, which William quickly snatched away from her.

"Of course it will. Have you forgotten who you're talking to Laura?" William snapped as he wiped the device on his tunic. "As I was saying. I propose that we use this and change our target for tonight. I think we should hit the main weapons depot. All we'd need is to get a small team into the building, get this receiver onto a mine or some other high explosive, clear out, and set it off. One blast leads to another and we blow the whole facility and strike a crippling blow to the military police. As long as Luke drives carefully, no one even needs to know that we had anything to do with it."

Laura's jaw dropped, John's eyebrows raised, and Luke nearly dropped his revolver as William detailed his idea for the evening's excitement.

"The weapons depot, are you crazy?" Laura exclaimed, looking from William to John as if seeking some form of backup.
"No, I'm tired, and this can work." William replied, single eye staring straight at John.
"And what about the collateral damage mate? The depot is in a right crowded area! We blow the place up and who knows how many civvies go with it." Luke said with a horrified look on his face.

"And what exactly do you propose we do then? A frontal assault with all the troops we can muster? Without the general population mobilizing we don't have the manpower. Cut the power and try to break in? We'd still be completely surrounded by the enemy, and as soon as the Watch figures out what we're up to, we'd have no escape route. We don't have very many options here, and every day that the depot is still running is another day that Liberation troops are dying. This depot is crucial for the Watch's supply routes, especially with the ongoing conflict with the Kah'Talians in the south, and disrupting it here in the capital would not only send a signal to the people that the resistance is able to make good on its promises of freedom but would also send a message straight up to the High Regent himself. Plus the Watch would have to make a decision: reroute their supply routes to continue the losing campaign in the south, or bring more weapons to the capital to deal with us." William said, not breaking eye contact with John. "We have an opportunity here. I say we take it."

John sighed and sat down on a nearby crate, clearly troubled by the thought of bombing such a densely populated area of the city.

"What do you think John? You're the boss." Laura asked, glancing back at William uncertainly.

"I think I know what makes sense tactically and what makes sense ethically." John replied with a grim scowl.
"Wil's right. Bombing the depot would cripple Watch activities in the city, at least for now, but it wouldn't exactly send the best message to the general public. What makes us any better than the Tower if we're willing to sacrifice civilians for a temporary tactical benefit? What are we even fighting this war for if we don't care about human lives? They're not just numbers on a report. They're the very countrymen we're fighting to liberate."

"The difference is that we're not looking to install ourselves as the new despots here. We need to remember that the greater good of the nation, the freedom of the people, outweighs the temporary suffering of the few that will be injured by the actions we take to get there." William replied dispassionately.

"Do you even hear yourself mate?" Luke exclaimed angrily, standing up and approaching William, who brings his left arm up instinctively. Lines of light flash along the vambrace on his forearm, and Luke checks his advance. "You sound just like the bloody Tower does! 'This is for the greater good and prosperity of the people of Slesar! Long live the Regent! Long live the Empire!'" He said, voice rising.

"Don't you dare compare me to those fascists. I am nothing like them. We have a duty to overthrow this regime, and that means that some innocent bystanders will be hurt by our actions. I just have the courage to say what we all know." William said with an angry glint in his eye.

"Enough!" John declared, his sonorous voice echoing in the small room. "Our enemy is the High Regent and those that oppress our brethren. I will not tolerate any petty infighting between us. William has a point, we don't have a choice about whether or not we hit the depot. What he is wrong about, however, is that civilians will be killed because of our actions. We are not terrorists, and we will not behave like we are. Laura, I want you to gather what medics we have and send out scouts into the surrounding slums. Get as many people out as possible and have medical care ready to help those that are still caught by the blast. Luke, I want you to rally the men. They will act as a diversion to draw the MPs away from the depot while William and I get in to plant the device. We'll establish a rendezvous point at a safe distance from the facility where you'll pick the two of us up. Wil, is there any way you can try and contain the blasts once you've set off the chain reaction?"

"We would need to plant explosives along the support structures in the depot and set those off, which will mean we'll be more exposed for longer. I also can't guarantee that the building will come down safely, since I have no idea how much of what explosives are stored where." William replied after a moment of thought.

"Then we'll take that risk. Any action we can take to minimize civilian casualties is one that must be performed. Does everyone know their roles?" John asked the group, who nod their understanding. "Then get moving. Be ready to deploy by nightfall, tonight we turn this war around."

• • •

"Are the civilians away?" John's voice crackled through the communicators in the team's ears.

"We got as many out as we could, and those that are left either refused to leave or are still packing their belongings." Laura responded, nervously glancing towards a patrol passing by.

"We have medics on hand for casualty mitigation?"

"As many as we could gather without attracting attention"

"Then it looks like we're ready to go. Be careful owl one, we won't get a second chance.

"Yes I know that. I'm initiating radio silence until I've planted the receiver. Owl one out." William said as he climbed a metal ladder on the side of a large housing unit. Once he reached the roof of the building, he flipped the switch on his communicator and flicked his wrist. The vambrace on his arm pulsed with light and began to extend complex circuits and wires along his arm, followed by servos and armor plates until his entire hand and forearm were encased in a gauntlet. The gauntlet glowed from multiple exposed access ports and power conduits that branched out from the center of his wrist. Flipping a switch, the side of the gauntlet facing his body opened several armor plates to reveal a small, smooth, & round stone covered in glowing marks and glowing a dark blue while spinning slowly in its socket. Reaching into one of the pockets of his longcoat, William extracted a second orb like the one in the gauntlet and inserted it into one of the open sockets next to the spinning stone where it immediately began to spin as well. Closing the access panel, William pulled the hood of his coat over his head and a scarf around his face as he quietly approached the edge of the rooftop he had been sitting on.

Just across the road stood the outer facade of the weapons depot, with most of the structure extending down below the street. Small and unassuming, the facility had been designed to appear to the outside observer as though it were a simple Watch barracks, which helpfully placed William's perch above the facility's roof. Turning the dial on his eyepatch, William cycled through several lenses before selecting the one that gave him enough magnification to check the surface of the building for guards. Satisfied that there were none posted, he stood up and extended his gauntlet covered hand. A quick flex of his fingers and a puff of air from the exhaust port on the gauntlet launched a barbed tether fires from his wrist connected to a sturdy metal cable. The harpoon finds its mark, embedding itself into the frame of the door to the roof, and William detaches the cable from his gauntlet, ramming it down into the roof of the building he stood on before ziplining down to the