CaillieGirls™ October YC123 Edition
The following publication has been passed to CaillieGirls™ by the Internal Triglavian Revolutionary Organization claiming to act on behalf of imbedded reporter Hugo Harghest. Established sources were unable to verify the legitimacy of the claim nor content herein. Previously assumed dead following a collapse in contact during the battle of Sa’kak in YC122, the article has been published out of respect for the reporter and as a fascinating, if unproven, look at like in the Snake Pit of New Eden.
I had remained mostly on standby over the last year, invited for a ride-along every so often when the warclones of Skarkon wanted to make sure I had a front seat to document their exploits like the Battle of Ishuhuolovi Gulf on the Ergs Sea. This wasn’t going to be some back of the book article in a porno mag (no offense to my editor if you’re reading this) but a full on memoire, a textbook, a case study for the world to remember what happened here on the ground decades from now when the dust settles, fog clears, and the politicians start conjuring up their own myths in hindsight. Scream all you want about ethics but if some limpdick officer can sit their fat ass on a war council in silence while politicians throw up every red flag they can that they’re fascist pricks full of horseshit while they do nothing so they can sell all the details in a book deal then I’m not going to lose much sleep over holding onto my little scrapbook of war footage until the time is right.
For the last six months I was living in the Varyazi encampment, the Triglavian re-branding of the warclone combat team I’d pair with during the Invasion. The fall of Skarkon hit them a lot harder than they let on and woke something inside them a bit darker than when they first touched down. Few radicals were willing to hold ranks when their commander heel-turned to work with the new regime, even fewer were able to whether their constant “proving” to adapt to the new order. What’s left was small close-knit group of die-hard loyalists to their The Red Knight.
I’d met them a hand full of times during the war, brief moments between deployments in canvas tents on the airfields to assign groups to operations. The image he projects on the GalNet of the well-groomed warrior-poet rubbing shoulders with capsuleers doesn’t match the man I’d seen on the ground though; a pale featureless combat clone buttoned up in crims-- No crimson is too pretentious-- red armor, shrouded in an olive flight jacket. He was fond of plastering his helmet with nanite-laced dazzle paint, shifting and lighting up to convey the charisma that his ghoulish mass-produced face couldn’t. I got the call last week to meet with him again.
Usually, he saw me as a curiosity. He liked to hold court, clearly amused with keeping a reporter close as a novelty and a point of personal pride as he wrote history at gunpoint. This time though, he spared me the showmanship or the charming hayseed soldier act. He needed something from me, and a request he didn’t take lightly.
With such a light force, their doctrine was forced to adapt to asymmetric conflict and psychological operations to hit the enemy, twist the knife, then withdraw protected by overwhelming air power. Even then though, the Battle of Ishuhuolvi Gulf gutted their air cover and the last of their troops had been recalled to support the major kyber offensive in the North. The remnants of the encampment had a new tasking to open up a new front in the war; advancing into the Ngelgnieg Desert.
Before all this I was hunting a story in the Ngelgnieg, digging up leads on weapons trading and building a story on the people of the desert. The people of the Ngelgnieg were unique, far removed from the people of the habitable zone that surrounded the Ergs Sea. Generations of Cartel, Republic, Amarr, and now Svarog rule meant nothing to the nomadic clans that made their home there; if ever they were once Cartel settlers, Thukker offshoots, or Vherokior nomads has been lost to history after generations of isolation reshaped their language, culture, and makeup. Few spoke the language, or knew how to navigate their trade routes to the ruins they called home among the ancient colonies of long forgotten empires. They were an unknown unknown, indifferent to the colonial rulers that came and went and as-of-yet undecided in their role under the black sun of Skarkon.
I felt a lump in my throat when he asked me the question, and I replied without thinking. I would guide an expedition into the Ngelgnieg, and the secrets of Varyazi, the Collective, and now even the tribes of the desert would be open to me. The choice to accept the warclone implant from there was easy, an advanced insurance policy against an occupational hazard for the chance at the story of the century.
Could you blame me? Consider this my official letter of resignation, I’ve decided to go freelance now.
(Above: Varyazi CIWS repels Tribal Resistance rocket attacks.)
(((Artist Credit)))
