Battleplans: Atlantis

“Ahh, so here is the great ‘Solus Augustus’ I’ve been hearing so much about” greeted a Merman as you entered the war room. The Merman was in a specially designed well next to the war table, which allowed him to rest his tail on a submerged platform and be at eye height with everyone else around the table.

“All good things I hope” you reply with a nod as you walk up to the table. A Meep, the same one you had go to Atlantis in the first place, was putting the final touches on a scale model of the submerged city.

“Certainly some interesting things,” the Merman muttered. He was the king of the Merfolk, or the Atlantians as they call themselves. The man part of him was thick, almost what you’d call ‘barrel chested’ if it wasn’t for the more flat nature of his body. Unlike popular mythos, the Merman was most definitely not just a man’s torso on a fish tail. He had a nose that closed like a seals’, lines on his neck that denoted gills, and long, pointy ears that looked almost webbed.

“Are the men fully assembled?” you ask Strabo who was on the opposite side of the war table from the Merman king.

“The full legion, all heads accounted for” Strabo told you “Two thousand fighting strong, and five hundred support staff” he added.

“Two thousand is a small number” The king commented, rubbing his chin in thought. “Are you certain that’s going to be enough?” he asked. You could understand his worries somewhat, his people had been battling the serpents for a long time and so had some idea of their strength.

“While two thousand might be a small number for a city invasion, I’m confident that having soldiers specialised in land combat will work out better than having soldiers specialising in sea combat” you tell the king.

“How so?” Asked the king, giving you a frown.

“We focus on stopping attacks on land, as opposed to dodging them or striking first” Strabo explained. “With the enchantments we have, our armour and weapons will be protected, even at the bottom of the sea and they give us a material advantage as well” he added.

“Coupled with the fact that we fight in formations tailored to land combat, and we have a winning formula” you contribute, getting a nod of agreement from Strabo.

“Still . . . you have a plan that uses my own people, don't you?” the king asked and you nodded.

“The plan is simple” you begin “We are going to descend into the depths with your soldiers as support, and to keep our . . . uhh . . . landings . . . so to speak unopposed, since we will have to cross through the open water for a short time” you explain. “I would prefer for you to launch an attack with enough men to **** the Serpents to retreat into their holes so that we can dig them out, but not enough men to make them stay there and fight us” you continue.

“Our men are an unknown” Strabo piped up “The enemy will likely decide to try their luck against us if they know they can’t beat you” he said “And when we prove superior, they may try to grind us down with attrition, rather than face your people if they think they can’t escape” he added.

“So you want just enough to make them retreat into their stronghold, but to have few enough that they can break out?” the king asked and you nodded. “That gets us back to square one, they’ll take another city, or make their own stronghold in a more vital location” he growched.

“Not so” you say and get a raised eyebrow from the king. “We want them to ‘think’ they can escape, when in actuality you’ll have the main bulk of your **** holding the city to siege out of their vision range” you tell him.

“They’ll swim right into a trap!” the king said, catching on to the plan at last.

“Yes, we actually want them to try to escape, rather than stay and fight” you say. “As Strabo said, they might decide to just stay and try to beat us through attrition, and I can’t abide that,” you explain. “We are contributing a large chunk of our current military strength to this operation” you tell the Merman.

“That’s if they flee” Strabo piped up. “That plan is for if they flee, however, we intend on disrupting those wards and flooding the city once more” he explained.

“And then we won’t need your men anymore” the king commented with a nod “And our armies assembled outside of the city can swim right on in and dig them out of their burrows ourselves” he said. “How soon until this contraption gets here?” the king asked, referring to the launching platform you had created to transport your men and launch your submarines from. It was a smaller version of the Lantean city ship from Stargate, it was just big enough to house the legion and their submarines.

“A few days” you reply. The king gave a sour look at that.

“It’s a good thing I already ordered my armies to assemble near Atlantis! No surface dweller can swim their ships that fast! And no Atlantian either!” he said before shaking his head. “I will remain then, until we get to my armies, and then I shall inform them of the plan” he told you and you nodded.

“Make sure everybody’s ready for our battle” You tell Strabo. “This is going to be bigger than Tarantium, and most of the losses will fall to us” you comment as you turn and begin leaving.

“Can you not bring them back?” Strabo asked, his face ever as impassive as always.

“I don’t know” you admit “The necessity of this disturbs me, I’m not sure how much control I will have down there” you tell the man.

“We’ll adapt, come what may, we will adapt” Strabo told you.

“Tarantium Aeternus” you say softly.

“Tarantium Invicta” Strabo replied.