NOVEL NEXT vol. 5 chapter 1 - What’s Yours Is Mine
Today again, a large cargo plane lands at the airfield built on the outskirts of Fratara City.
Day and night without pause, the cargo planes have kept bringing in supplies to the Fratara outskirts base.
“If possible I’d like to run heavy cargo trains, but it’s premature.”
“It’s way too far for trucks. Inefficient, but aircraft are our only option, huh.”
This cargo plane is a large, electrically driven propeller aircraft capable of flight via microwave power beaming.
Its maximum takeoff weight exceeds 300 t.
And because it does not need to carry fuel, its payload is far greater than it looks.
Even so, compared to rail or trucks running on the ground, it inevitably comes up short.
“Outside the microwave power-beaming envelope it can’t fly, and the airframe itself is sluggish. We can only operate it in airspace where we control the skies.”
“There’s no way we’re taking this to the front. It’d just be a target.”
Displaying a heavy cargo plane just lifting off from the runway at Fortress No. 2 Black Iron on the screen, Commander Eve answers that way.
Fully loaded, it needs roughly 2,000 m of runway to take off. For a propeller aircraft, that is quite a long roll.
Its top speed is only about 500 km/h, and its maneuverability is not good.
“It’s a so-called wartime mass-production model, so the cost is extremely low, at least.”
“Yeah, true.”
Each of these large cargo planes can only be flown about five to ten times. They are not overhauled; once they get sketchy, they’re scrapped—a terribly wasteful way to use an aircraft.
That said, they were rushed into service for crash-builds of forward bases, so that’s that.
Long-service models are currently being designed by Olive.
And Ringo is designing a different craft as well.
“In three days, the forward base outside Fratara City can be brought to combat strength. Once pacification of the surroundings is complete, we’ll begin construction of a direct rail line to Fortress No. 2 Black Iron.”
“By ‘surroundings’… Fratara City, Great Horse Town, and then East Gate City and West Gate City. I don’t want meddling from the sidelines, so make it quick.”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. Understood.”
◇◇◇◇
The United Kingdom of Aphrasia is mostly wasteland.
For that reason, settlements are arranged around water sources like oases, and the number of cities is small. From north to south, they are as follows:
At the northernmost end, North-End City.
The Aphrasia royal capital.
Game-Knight Fief Village.
Wheat Hill City.
East Gate City.
West Gate City.
Great Horse Town.
And, the Iron Town and Telek Port City, which Paraiso has covertly taken over.
Other small villages were scattered about, but in the past few years their number had dropped sharply.
Fortunately, Wheat Hill City is steadily producing wheat, and it seems the major cities’ food needs are being met.
Because the cities lie near lakes holding abundant water, they can also secure protein sources.
Each city nominally has semi-autonomy, and the United Kingdom of Aphrasia just barely keeps up appearances.
That said, as a state it has completely lost cohesion.
The Tree’s faction is expanding its territory carefully.
They fly High-Altitude Drones overhead, push up the energy-supply grid, and at the same time set spy-bots running.
At present, Wheat Hill City has come under their surveillance umbrella.
“We plan to designate the Fratara City base here as Fortress No. 3, and as of now we’ll consider transfers of troops and materiel to this site complete.”
The last scheduled heavy cargo plane, loaded with the items on the plan, touches down on the runway.
There are still transport plans ahead, but from this moment the Aphrasia United Kingdom Invasion Operation begins.
“Commander Ma’am. The materiel stockpiling plan has been completed without delay. Please give the order to commence the operation.”
“Here we go.”
At Fortress No. 2 and at the Fratara City base, heavy weapons prepped for sortie stand in long ranks.
This first invasion operation aims for the complete subjugation of the southern region of the United Kingdom of Aphrasia.
There are two target cities:
Great Horse Town and West Gate City.
And there is one more important operational objective:
To retake territory on Aphrasia’s western side from the Wheat Country of Weizenland and the other small states.
“All right, everyone! As of now, we commence
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am.”
““““““Roger!””””””
At Commander Eve’s call, Ringo and the six sisters respond in chorus.
For the record, Asahi is currently dispatched to the Telek Port City base, so she alone participates via monitor. Her role is mainly dispatching forces from Telek Port City and managing resources.
“Fortress No. 2, begin takeoffs of air-superiority fighters.”
“Fratara City base, launch air-superiority drones.”
“Likewise, begin moving suppression units.”
“High-Altitude Power-Supply Platform reports no anomalies. Power beaming to movers nominal—all green.”
“Link with supersonic high-altitude reconnaissance plane LRF-1 Vulture nominal. Entering the operational airspace.”
All the various Tree-made invasion weapons prepared for this moment begin moving at once.
West Gate City, about 100 km from Fratara City, will be approached by ground-moving multi-legged suppression machine groups.
Great Horse Town, on the opposite side of the lake, has been assigned airborne units launching from Fortress No. 2.
These two task groups are scheduled to begin their suppression battles at almost the same time, roughly two hours from now.
The most critical concern at this stage is leakage of information to the Wheat Country and other states.
To fix the border line, additional forces will have to be sent after the two cities are subdued.
Since the forces to secure the border are not assembled yet, they don’t want to cause needless alarm in neighboring countries.
“Begin aerial photography of the operational area. Numerous caravans confirmed on West Gate City’s trade routes.”
“Mark the targets. Because airborne units risk visual detection, ground units will handle detentions. Plotting intercept routes now.”
Accordingly, every caravan with any chance of visually observing the suppression operation is slated for detention.
As long as information can be sealed for just a few weeks until the border-securing forces are in place, there will be no problem.
“Multiple unidentified groups confirmed within the suppression area.”
“Analyzing imagery… Result: assessed as Fuelstone mining groups. We can also confirm improvised bases.”
“Recommend airborne suppression. Assessment: probability of information leakage under 1%. Assigning 16th Airborne Company.”
The operations map updates one after another: real-time imagery from the Vulture recon plane, analytic feeds from the deployed high-altitude platforms moving forward,
and data from pre-positioned concealed fixed information collectors—devices originally buried underground that were exposed at # Nоvеlight # ground level at the moment the operation began.
“Good start.”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am.
Pre-operation intel from spy-bots also shows no forces that would impede us.
From the magic-fantasy analytical perspective, Asahi has conducted sufficient assessments.
If we were talking about the Aphrasia royal-capital direction that would be one thing, but in the southern cities there is virtually no possibility that any group—or individual—exists that could pose a threat.”
In particular, everything south of Fratara City is a frontier from the royal capital’s viewpoint and is not valued.
East Gate City and West Gate City have flourished as trade hubs, to be sure, but given the resource poverty on the Aphrasia side, their domestic influence has been limited.
Had there been no civil war in the United Kingdom of Aphrasia, it’s possible these two might have become the twin great cities of the realm.
From the royal capital’s perspective, Wheat Hill City, the food production base, is the last major city; everything south of that is treated as pioneer towns.
Therefore, The Tree can serenely subdue the southern cities.
“Airborne drops on Great Horse Town begin in 114 minutes. At the same time, the deployed ground machine groups will commence the thrust into West Gate City. Disarmament of each town is scheduled for six hours from now.”
“We can do it in six hours, huh…”
The cities will be completely encircled by multi-legged tanks. From there, multi-legged tanks and ground infantry will push in and neutralize armed elements.
In addition, using multi-legged ground carrier platforms, numerous anti-personnel drones will be投入ed.
Aerial assets will basically not participate in ground attack. Bombing and gun runs have too much destructive power and are deemed likely to cause needless expansion of damage.
As a precaution, they will only remain on airborne standby to escort cargo planes.
Also, because the other side has zero understanding of aircraft, analysis shows the intimidation effect is limited.
Overwhelming trampling by multi-legged tanks is the most effective.