“We can’t change what’s happened already,” John reminded her. “The General will have this to deal with out there as well.” Damn Dick Cameron,” Verschaffelt said angrily. There are four in the Rim Worlds Republic though and they’ve been in their hands for ten years now. “As far as I know, not one of them was taken during the Uprisings.” “There are fortresses like this in the Periphery,” John added. The problem was, due to Richard Cameron’s blind trust of Stefan Amaris, the men defending the Castles Brian were the invaders. Updated regularly over the centuries since Brian Cameron had commissioned them and given them his name, the six that had been encountered so far were performing the task superbly. The massive underground fortifications were intended to allow an outnumbered garrison to hold out and harass the invaders until a relief force arrived. That’s why we haven’t pushed at the fortifications.”Ĭastles Brian were from the previous round of grandiose defensive works built for the Hegemony. The entire division involved has had to be pulled back due to casualties. “It was going rather well until the attempt to take Rio’s Castle Brian. Given you managed that with eight divisions, it’s not all that bad.” “You’ve liberated seven planets from Amaris, well four and three halves. “I think they have a new appreciation for how bad the fighting was in the Periphery.”īrandt shrugged. “Most of my men would agree,” Verschaffelt told her. “The jeep I was in yesterday hit a pot-hole and over-turned.” “No one,” the commander of IX Corps replied. “And who took a shot at you, General?” she asked. That’s as near as you can reasonably get to being on plan once you consider that Amaris’ forces have a plan too.”īrandt shook her head. “We’ve reached that point, so we stopped and waited. “The plan was to push as far as this or until we ran into opposition we couldn’t confidently defeat without the main force under your command.” He offered her a chair and then re-joined Janos Grec, who now sported a Vice Admiral’s rank badges, and General Verschaffelt, whose arm was in a sling. “Yes, wasn’t your plan to have the planet secured by now?” she said without ceremony.
The First Prince rose from the table and greeted Joan Brandt with a gentlemanly bow. John had pulled a platoon from one of his own battalions and had them watch, issuing a single one word order: “Learn.”įor all their newness, the conference facilities were perfectly functional. Elements of one of IX Corps’ engineering battalions had assembled it in the last seventy-two hours. A small convoy of olive-painted APCs rushed out to the Fury and were joined by two identical units that exited the dropship’s vehicle ramp.Īfter a complicated little dance on the ferrocrete, the personnel carriers broke into groups and departed in several directions, one of which was into he bunker complex that supplemented the original hangers and control tower.
The massive security presence made it no great secret who was arriving, but at least they didn’t have a brass band, John thought. The escorts wouldn’t be setting down here to rotate, a second landing field had had to be set aside and guarded for that purpose. Engineers would have to finish securing the latter before the damage from the former could be made good.Īs a result, the Fury dropship set down on a single relatively small runway and pulled up a little harder than the pilot seemed to have expected. For that reason the Rim Worlds garrison had defended the ports by shelling them with a mix of high explosive and artillery-deployable anti-tank mines. Those facilities would be very useful for unloading the military equipment and supplies currently in orbit. The drop port was a smaller field rather than one of the main facilities that handled freight and public transportation for the planet.
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