Cracks in the Spires

41: The siege begins.

Stravel listened to his his senior sergeant report that the Esperancers had completely evacuated UpCIt.

"Absolutely everybody. You are sure?"

"Yes Sir we watched the whole operation. We could have caused complete chaos and a lot of casualties" he sounded vaguely regretful "but as instructed we let them get on with it."

"Good. The flyboats will be arriving at the algae farm any time now so reinforcements are on their way. I want those diggers back in operation. I want that field operational as soon as possible. We need to repair our skimmers. Take as many men as needed down to the lower level of UpCit and investigate the hangers. I want to find the way in and out that they were using to bother us. It's got to be there somewhere."

"Very good Sir. Do you want to move operations to their headquarters?"

"No. It's probably full of traps. This is ideal. We've got communications. The villas just the other side are fine for sleeping so long as nobody uses the water. Why move?"

"Put like that Sir why indeed? I've got guards on the gates to the elite field and UpCit. I've also got a few people at the President's palace entrance should I withdraw any of them?

Stravel nodded "If they've evacuated UpCit we don't need guards on the entrances to the Spires other than the elite skimmer field. Move them to watch the entrance from UpCit to the rest of the City."

"Will do Sir." The sergeant departed.

Stravel decided to contact Shami Mayoth and report developments. It wasn't Shami but his brother Volny who answered.

"Progress?"

Stravel would have preferred to deal with Shami, Volny was as unpredictable as old man Chem. He smothered his annoyance

"Progress is good. We have secured the whole of the Spires and UpCit. We're waiting for the reinforcements to arrive."

"So what do you want?"

"An update. Have Denil agreed?"

"Who cares we can take them as well when we're ready. If you've got UpCit how soon can you start shipping workers back?"

"I'd like the flyboats to arrive first." Stravel said dryly. At that point to his relief Shami entered the conversation.

"Thanks Volny I'll take it from here." Stravel listened to some muffled sounds and then Shami spoke again "He's gone. Denil have been happy to close their eyes in response to a generous increase in their quota of rare earth minerals. We have control of the Free Isles port. The Kvernstaters had evacuated just before we got there but our consul says there are Kvernstaters aiding the Esperance rebellion. I want them captured alive and brought here. Perfect excuse to move against Kvernstat without upsetting Denil. Oh and get that stupid woman that Grandfather wants and ship her here. It'll keep him quiet. How's it going there? Your reinforcements should be at the algae farm any time now."

"Yes they contacted me. It's not going badly but they've been clever. We've got control of UpCit but no people as yet but with the reinforcements we'll be able to bottle them up and starve them out. They can't feed the entire population on microproteins for long. What about Greenland?"

"We've got Foran here. He's still useful for the moment. With the troops we've sent you it'll stretch us too thin to take over Greenland, it can wait. Once you've got complete control down there we can redeploy men. We've also got the Riss's tapped as the chief conspirators" he laughed "All they were interested in was saving Hemia's hide but it worked out perfectly for us. Helped to convince Denil. There's a third boat coming with the supplies you requested. Try not to make the City completely uninhabitable. We need it to produce food and work the landfills and the algae farms."