But Rucigrad, and the rebuilt ‘Fort’ Pseros settlement at the southern tip of Gorvikia, were symbols now, serving as statements of Legate Aurus Adeni’s power over the nature and the very history of Noverra: “I did what no Isaurian could do.” Already the Isaurian Diet had voted to memorialize the date of the Rucigrad drop operation as a national holiday, while tales of the battles to defend that place and Fort Pseros from the Gorvikian counterattack sped from mouth to ear and book to hologram as quickly as Adeni’s propagandists could manage, outpacing real news by weeks if not months in order to bring Evvia the ‘true story of the war’ in as much glorious, nationalistic detail as could be managed.Īt least no one would remember Sarnath, at least until Adeni was no longer living to care about it. The island itself remained barren glass for now, and the captain shared the doubts of many observers who wondered why such important resources were being wasted on a country that would not see its first harvest until long after every currently-living Isaurian was dead and gone. Death in Gorvikia, at least, was finally giving way to life: The terraformers set up in Rucigrad Landing had begun their work, and had already accomplished a measurable reduction in particulate density in the immediate vicinity of Gorvikia’s former capital.
Nothing progressed, nothing grew, and nothing aged on a world that had been all but dead for three hundred years.Ĭaptain Scipiones turned her attention away from the visuals of the world below her to focus on atmospheric reports flashing across the main viewscreen of the Reclamation War’s bridge. Time for Noverra had stood still, in almost every place. What struck Captain Scipiones most clearly, however, was that the rubble of Orteio seemed… fresh, perhaps-rather, that the visible evidence of the city’s destruction had not been eroded or softened by the passage of three and a half centuries, but remained as stark and brutal to the naked eye as the crater dug up mere months before. When she compared the evidence of Orteio’s destruction to the blast zones of Cape Devinaria, dug into Cielote soil from the Thirteenth Daimyokantai four months ago as an expeditionary Gorvikian army revealed itself to orbital targeting while endeavoring to invade Glys over the sea in force, the captain could see a difference merely of scale: Orteio, the capital of Cielo, the last commercial and political hub of the Western Hemisphere, the crown and throne of five kingdoms even before the entanglement of the Grand Union, had been by necessity a massive city that had sustained hours of continuous bombardment before the Void Fleet had been satisfied that the Gorvikians assaulting it were dead to the last man the isolated expeditionary force in Cape Devinaria had been annihilated with a single warhead. Captain Xianna So Scipiones frowned as she contemplated the old blast zones of Orteio, where the Lords Loria once incinerated uncounted throngs of Gorvikians amidst the millions of tortured Cielotes that had once held their noses in the presence of Gaivarvaran lord-generals and, at the last, begged the nobles of Isauria to save them from a fate worse than annihilation. Legate of the Atsumaru to the Province of Isauriaįrom orbit, centuries-old scars upon the surface of Noverra appeared no less agonizing or destructive than those that had been scraped upon the planet’s face within the last year of fighting. In faithful service to the Celestial Emperor-may he live ten thousand years-I remain: Here upon the surface of Noverra, there remains so much more to do. I beg you to forgive the brevity of this missive. And so I have brought victory to your hands. Already atmospheric cleaning is underway at Rucigrad, and the brave Isaurian warriors that so lately hammered punishment upon the heads of our enemies now guide the world of their ancestors into a period of glorious rebirth. Gorvikians trouble its people no longer its surface, marred by their long occupation, shall soon flourish under our mutual care. This planet, origin and harbinger of our shared destinies, is once again free. To the August Senators of the Atsumaru, and likewise to the Honored Senators of the Diet of Isauria and furthermore to the hands and heart of Ban Rosane, Honored Governor of this Province of Isauria and also of Transisesen: Hail and Greetings from Noverra Redeemed!
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