At last, the world made sense.
The earth beneath his feet was not beholden to
pedestrian gravity, the open skies surrounding him on every horizon- he was draped in honour, and command staff bustled about him, carrying sheafs of paperwork, and, more importantly- a chilled glass of fine wine. He could complain about the fact that he was only
second in command of this whole operation, but given that the fleet admiral was a God-King, he was hard-pressed to argue that his own title of Baron should supercede this Gilgamesh's.
He sipped from the crystal glass as he surveyed the assortment of troops under his command- groundling brigades, armoured columns, and the- he frowned as he looked closer at the words on the page before him.
Horrifically mutated, hundred-foot tall, biomechanical flightless birds.
He silently revised his earlier statement as he waved down another pageboy to fetch him another glass of wine.
Well- strange company aside, he had reclaimed his past station and glory. With quill and ink, he sketched deployment lines. Infantry, armoured support- he certainly wouldn't mind a naval gun or two to
shore up their defences, and he made note to ask one of his aides to both record the pun and inquire about the possibility of requisitioning artillery pieces large enough to pose a threat to their opposition. He could trust these simple infantry to hold a line against whatever abominations crawled out from the depths- but to charge into them? Less so. No, that was the domain of their betters, to crusade outwards and conquer this strange land. It was theirs to grow turnips on the soil he and his reclaimed.
He turned his attention back to the larger-scale maps, an archipelago rendered in ink and paper, and he frowned. Whatever band of yeomen had been sent out to scout ahead and map the battlefield had clearly failed in their duties. Whether that was through negligence or, say, being devoured by a tentacled horror of some abyssal depth mattered little- either way, Isaac would have to amend the errors of lesser men.
He looked to the assembly of command staff, jutting a finger towards the grand-scale tapestry of terrain that had been pinned to the wall of the war room. "I want our fliers airborne and laying eyes on whatever's out there," he said decisively, tapping against the various glowing sigils that occupied the table. For some reason, his staff seemed to cringe when he set his wine glass upon its surface, as if fearful of him spilling that fine vintage over its strange, glowing expanse. He'd had no idea
why they'd lacked proper maps when he arrived, but they'd managed to tack enough sheafs of paper to the wall to start scrawling a vague approximation of their surroundings upon it.
"Send runners out to the pilots- if they can fly, sprint, or swim, they ought to be out there finding us no end of targets," Isaac grinned, picking his flight helmet up from where it had rested on the table and setting it over his head. "I'll be taking to the skies myself- that One-C of yours. No sense in letting them take all the glory for themselves, eh?" He laughed, jauntily stepping out of the command bunker and towards his personal hangar.
As soon as he left, the professionals within carefully moved his wine glass and activated the holographic display it was set upon, grumbling to themselves as they coordinated the movement of Syntech's legions of mercenaries through scintillating webs of high-tech light-interfaces. Professional soldiers, glory-seekers with their own eclectic armaments who had lacked the
panache to earn themselves a privileged role within the pilot's seat, all of them danced on Mister Jak's strings of silver and credit, directed into something that the Commandant could likely be convinced into thinking that he had ordered. At least it would be good television when that pompous idiot got himself eaten by a Kraken.
Don Isaac is flying out to 1C. Those with mobility are encouraged to fly/swim about and discover cool things.
