Firefly Part 14 - final update plus teaser · 4:05pm Feb 25th, 2019
The climactic Battle of Epsilon chapter is draft complete and currently tipping the scales at a whopping 15,194 words. Musical selections are also made--expect some very heavy metal from a particularly appropriate album courtesy of AJ_Aficionado!--and it's now awaiting prereader passes. After due consideration, it is not going to be broken up into two parts. It's a big chapter because it needs to be in order to tell the full story of The Battle Beneath the Storm.
What remains? In a word: graphics. In all honesty, I've not been looking forward to doing those, even though I don't actually think it'll be that bad given I'll be working from graphics I've already made for the most part. It will take me a few evenings at least, however, and will include some supercell diagrams overlaid to show the extent of the storm and location of various units within and beneath it.
Look for release towards the latter half of the week. Expect epicness, minor victories and defeats, some badass momemts, and perspectives of previously unseen characters. And since you've all been so patient, here's one final teaser:
"Flight Sergeant Starling! What is your platoon’s status?” I called into my red command gem.
“Fighting but faltering, Commander! We have thirteen down! The gryphons just keep coming and it’s getting harder and harder to stay in the air! We took out a couple turmas, but the hail’s getting worse and the Knights are wrapping around our flank!” She recited their situation quickly. “They’re massing in the clear air south of the storm! We’re being pushed back and if we don’t get out of here, we’ll get pummeled by hail and in another minute our only escape route will be right under the wall cloud, ma’am!”
I swore under my breath at that, knowing that likely meant a death sentence to see the lowering and rapidly spinning cloud base through which glitters of growing hail could be seen in lightning strikes. Our plan had thus far worked; our efforts combined with the superstorm overhead had inflicted grievous losses, but with the storm nearing maturity, we were running out of time. “Withdraw your platoon towards the cavern, Flight Sergeant! Skirt the mesocyclone and get on the other side of the wall cloud as quickly as possible! Get your wounded inside the vault and keep our escape route to it open!”
“Aye-aye, ma’am!” she called out as I called Shrike again to advise him to watch out for incoming friendly forces. “Storm Sergeant Blue Bolt! Where are you?” I asked next, switching crystals.
“Here, ma’am!” To my relief, I got a quick answer. “Currently fighting with Stormrunner’s platoon!”
“Sergeant, you know the skies better than me! How long before it spawns a tornado?”
There was a pause as he appraised the situation. “At this rate, methinks it might not, ma’am! The storm’s flanking line is still weak!” he said, referring to a trailing front of clouds and stepped cumulus congestus clouds behind the mesocyclone that fed into the storm’s main body, continually powering it. “That means we’re not getting a strong rear flank downdraft, and without it? No tornado! And methinks the storm’s going to start running out of moisture soon! Once it does and transitions to a low-precipitation supercell, the downdrafts weaken and odds of tornado formation go way down! We’ll also lose our cover of rain!”
I swore again, which was unusual for me. ‘Twas within our capability to build a tornado on our own, but ‘twould require the entire battalion to generate one strong enough for our purposes and if the storm structure was not able to support it, ‘twould fall apart once we fled--if it didn’t turn on us before that. For our final plan to work, we needed the storm to produce a large tornado on its own within five minutes, but without a full pegasi platoon to provide the final push to make it do so naturally, it wasn’t going to happen.
The storm needed more help. But most of my troops were engaged or falling back; by rough count we’d already taken nearly forty casualties and that number was only going to go up the longer we stayed out there, fighting beneath the storm. Yet if we simply broke contact and headed for our redoubt, the storm would not produce its penultimate weapon and we’d be vulnerable to attack for it, especially as the storm’s low pressure occluded and drew back into its main mass, uncovering our base. But it would take at least an entire platoon of pegasi to make a difference, and the only platoon unaccounted for was…
“Ma’am! Beg to report!” My train of thought was broken as I suddenly heard Fell Flight’s voice through my crystal, though the sound of it was distorted by the storm. “Osprey’s platoon is missing and Stormrunner’s platoon got hit from behind and has lost half its strength! We were forced to break contact and retreat back towards the vault! We can’t stay out here much longer, ma’am!” she reminded me.
My guts clenched at that, wondering if Osprey’s platoon, which was stationed in the area of the flanking line, had been ambushed and overwhelmed in the clear air beside the storm. “Copy that! Take position near the watchtower and interdict any attempt to flank Blindside’s platoon, which is holding position at the entrance!” I told her, then switched aural frequencies so I would be broadcasting to every communication crystal within range, including the outpost ones, which dutifully picked up my transmission and boomed my voice throughout the base, just audible over the continuous rumble of thunder and violent winds that were now whipping back and forth.
“Flight Sergeant Osprey!” I shouted into my red gem, praying she was still alive and could hear me through the companion crystal in her possession. “If you can hear this, take your platoon to the flanking line and enhance the rear flank downdraft! We need a tornado NOW!”
The you-know what is going to majorly hit the fan in this chapter, folks. I'm so far quite pleased with the way this has turned out, and I believe readers will be as well. Be looking for it late in the week!
I'm looking forward to the chapter and other future chapters which will probably take a while.