Slimenian Revolution

(Continuing the history of the Slimenians, from here.)

We had ample warning of the Schliemann Tank's approach. The cloud of dust it raised as it approached was visible well over the horizon. Before it came within firing range, our small crew was already in battle stations, and the cannon were loaded and armed with the ancient shot found in its dusty storage rooms. We'd had little time to practice, and never with live ammunition, but all of us were ready. Equally, all of us were quite intimidated, as the Schliemann Tank - larger than our own, the symbol of Imperial power and repression - rolled into view.

While we were repairing our own tank, Dr. Cid had told us something of its weaponry. The Monster Tanks' guns were ingeniously designed by the invaders' engineers. They were equipped with their own powder, capable of firing nearly any projectile that would fit in the barrel - though, admittedly, not with any great accuracy. Accuracy doesn't count for much when you're shelling a village, he explained; or when attacking another tank the size of a small mountain. In the war that made the Empire, the tanks were loaded with conventional weapons; stones, arrows, and (as the war progressed and the tanks regularly met in battle) large bombs and rockets. When the war ended, these weapons were locked away and sunk offshore. They were too dangerous to be preserved; dissidents and terrorists might use them against the Empire. Instead, engineers led by Dr. Cid were set to work on other weapons, better suited to the tanks' current use: crushing all resistance to the Empire's rule. They devised shells containing inextinguishable flame, deadly gases, and other payloads meant to demoralize and intimidate. These were horrifically effective against the populace of rebellious towns, and a major cause of the Empire's peaceful state for the last eleven years.

The Schliemann Tank opened fire with a quick series of blasts. Upper and lower cannon fired as soon as they came in range, and only ceased after five or six weapons were launched from each cannon. They looked like glass skulls, jugs filled with poison and fire. We returned fire (not quite as quickly, alas) with our own weapons - of rather better quality. Sprays of pebbles prematurely shattered most of the enemy munitions, and our own (slow-tumbling bombs and swift-flying rockets) crashed unstoppably into the enemy armor, blowing great holes out of the finely polished facing. Their armor was tough; the Schliemann Tank had been the first Emperor's own private vehicle, after all, and with it he had won the war. Our own tank (from what Dr. Cid remembered) had been rather minor by comparison, and its armor was correspondingly weaker - especially after it spent generations being worn away by sea and salt. But the few of their acids and firebombs that hit merely etched away at the worn surface of the remainder.

Our own weapons tore away at the Schliemann's hide. They must have seen the way the battle turned, and reinvented an old tactic: launching their own crew at us with the cannon. The intent, as in the war, was to land them on our tank, there to sabotage and (ideally) commandeer. We shot them out of the sky with arrows and bombs and sent them screaming down to the fuming sea of poison-gas and fire left remnant from their failed shot.

Left short-crewed and unexpectedly outgunned, the Schliemann commander set to flee, reversing his tank's treads. We followed, much to Dr. Cid's complaint, as the fire and poison we rolled through both required and rendered potentially lethal repairs on our treads. Our guns continued pounding away at its armor was we rolled (at walking pace - these tanks are large, but not particularly swift) across the battlefield, knocking larger and larger holes. Then a particularly large bomb, not initially used due to the difficulty of moving it, finally blew straight through the Schliemann's weakened armor - and the two rockets already in flight behind it blew through the intervening decks and into the Schliemann's engine room, turning it into a pillar of fire a half-mile high.

We were jubilant. We had defeated the symbol of Empire - the greatest instrument of tyranny in all the land! - and our losses totaled two crewslimes killed, three injured by a freak hit through a gunport, and another injured by a misfire! Even Dr. Cid joined in the celebration, dancing and cheering - but, when the impromptu party finally ended, he told us the unfortunate facts. The Schliemann was manned by the honor-guard half of the Emperor's Own. They had not been engaged in serious combat for eleven years, and all the veterans of the War were either retired or dead by now. (Dr. Cid was a very old man; by some combination of species and luck, he'd managed to outlive very nearly all his contemporaries.) Their main duty was to look pretty when they were assigned to drive the Emperor on parades.

In contrast, the other half of the Emperor's Own were cold-hearted killers. They crewed the Schwartzmann Tank, and were sent on virtually every reprisal and repression mission requiring any force larger than a squad. They were commanded by Slival; the infamous gray warrior, always clad in black armor and possessed of an unholy lust for slaughter. It was said that he was on the invaders' side in the War, and joined the Empire after their defeat only to gain further opportunity for slaughter. When the first Emperor died, his successor named Slival First Warrior of the Empire (a title which the first Emperor had kept for himself). He was kept in line only by the 'carrot' of wanton slaughter and the 'stick' of the Schliemann Tank. He would prove a far more threatening opponent than our first had been, Dr. Cid informed us.

Somewhat sobered, we quickly repaired what battle damage we could, then moved to seize the advantage, leaving Dr. Cid with a few helpers to salvage useful parts from the wreckage of the Schliemann Tank. We rolled into town after town, greeted with near-universal jubilation, especially as word spread. The Liberators! The Saviors! Word spread of us faster than we could travel, thanks to the Imperial roads, and soon we were accepting volunteers by the dozen. We promised universal freedom, a restoration of the monarchy, an end to the lower-class status of the supernaturals - though we didn't promise that one quite so loudly when speaking to the native Slimenian audience. It was glorious. We felt unstoppable. Garrisons fled at our approach.

Then, one night, word arrived from the capitol, delivered by a desperate slime who nearly killed himself with haste. It was the worst we could have dreamed. Slival had assumed the throne, deposing the Emperor - without even pretense of justification! Without the threat of the Schliemann Tank to keep him in check, there was nothing to keep him from power. He put a steward in control of the Empire and, as the heroic slime had departed, was re-arming and fueling the Schwartzmann Tank. Imperial loyalists, largely composed of the garrisons we had never bothered to pursue, had been gathered into a force numbering in the thousands.

We were horrified. We had won a battle, but now we were very afraid that we were about to lose the war. We immediately began repairs long-delayed, strapping whatever we could find to the tank's hull to serve as armor, and sent a call out for warriors as far as we could in the limited time we had. By the time the tell-tale dust cloud appeared over the horizon, signaling us to abandon further repairs and hurry to the guns, we had a force of ten-thousand brave Slimenians; slimes and supernaturals alike. They had six thousand, but their six thousand was armed and trained; and what's more, they had the Schwartzmann's deadly cannon behind them. We had to keep the Schwartzmann occupied.

As the armies charged, meeting in a tremendous noise of clashing arms and squishing slime, the Schwartzmann opened fire with all guns. They must have found some ancient weapons locked away beneath the Imperial Palace - weapons even Dr. Cid didn't know of. Their barrage began with gigantic golden rockets and bombs - more powerful than the munitions we possessed, to judge by the holes they blew in our laboriously improvised armor. Unlike the Schliemann's commander, Slival remembered the tactics used in the War - he next launched waves of Emperor's Own protected by great iron shields, proof against the rockets and bombs we fired to try to knock them out of the sky. For a few precious moments, we had a respite as Slival held fire to protect the infiltrators he'd landed on our tank; then they were in the gunports fighting the gunners, and Slival opened up again.

It swiftly became clear that we were losing. Our armor was being blasted to shreds while we, engaged in fierce combat with the Emperor's Own, were unable to return fire. It was uttermost chaos - no-one could tell what anyone else was doing in the brawl. Struck by desperate inspiration, I smashed an Imperial into one of the lower cannon, pointing unusually low, then fired it with bomb and rocket. More by luck than by skill, the Schwartzmann was hit, knocking them out of commission. I seized the intra-tank vibraphone and shouted, "Retreat! All treads in full reverse! Retreat!"

The driver was dead, but his subordinate, thankfully, had things under control; we were retreating almost at once. Our army seemed blessedly victorious, beginning to envelope the enemy 'line' (though the battle was far less ordered than that term makes it sound). Even without us, with the Schwartzmann temporarily paralyzed, they were able to drive the Imperials into full retreat. They even tried to take the Schwartzmann from the base, but Slival dropped poison gas on them from above, and they were driven back.

The day was a victory, but mixed. We had killed the Emperor's Own that landed on our tank, but a third of the crew was lost - including our leader. We knew that the Schwartzmann could still beat us if it came to another battle. It would not be long, as the Schwartzmann's treads would doubtlessly be rendered operational again soon. We needed a plan.

Placed temporarily in command by the death of our leader and my own initiative, I closed my eyes and imagined the spires of the Imperial Palace - just a few short miles from where we stood, agonizingly close. Then I ordered retreat, to the wreckage of the Schliemann Tank.

Still To Be Continued!