No, Fussy’s not the devil; but, she does have her demons. Once she catches “victory fever” after Savannah we’ll likely see more of them, I’m afraid. In the meantime, she really does care about “her boys.”
Tag: politics
Locked out
Finished the segment I began yesterday: Faustina having a brief chat with the mayor of what’s left of Asheville. With that in the bag, I went to review some maps about their upcoming troop movements. Yeah, there are those three dams, but I’m sure the barges and escorts will fit through their locks… Those dams look a little small… let’s look them up and also check ‘street level view’!
Well, dang. Having spent a half-dozen of my formative years around the Columbia River, I took it for granted that a great waterway would have locks for barge traffic. I realized now that the Savannah River is not a “great waterway.” Important, certainly, but it is a creek compared to something such as the Columbia.
I still think I can get their artillery onto barges in Augusta. But the legions are going to have to cover the 160 miles from Asheville to there, first. Then, while the barges – under guard – move down-river, the infantry will march another 125 miles. I see that a few days of maps, calculations, and re-writes are ahead of me. Hope to have something by Wednesday.
Bed to bed
No, not Faustina; she’s too nice a girl for that… and she has more important things in her mind that dalliances with boys. “It is no small thing to make a new world.”
In the meantime, they are coming up on their first non-Knoxville population center and need to maintain operational security in what is essentially “Indian country.” I’ve actually written on a little as to what happens the next day but it was not a good fit for this little entry. Tomorrow.
First Moves
War! Well, at least the first stages of it. To engage an enemy you have to get your men there first. Faustina leads Legio One and Legio Two out of permanent camp on their way south, over the Smoky Mountains. This puts her in a challenging position: she will be away from any signal, at least until the outskirts of her target city, so will have no choice but to rely upon what the machine Ventidio trained her to do, as well as her own staff, officers, and centurions. If she’s smart, she will listen very closely to her centurions…
Declarations
I realized the timing is little off for these. Instead of “two months prior” and “one month prior” it should be 2-4 weeks later in both cases as these events take place not only after Faustina’s march on Savannah, but also after Gary and Henge come to save her life. That’s fine: these very rough manuscript drafts are for that purpose: for me to see that needs to be changed, revised, expanded, cut for a commercial novel release.
Below the fold Faustina makes her first public speech. There is A LOT going on in my head about the politics of this that I simply did not want to be bothered with right now. The important thing was answering the question of “chi l’oro?” Which I think I did, in a surprising and funny way.
A Question of fire
Part Two is all about Faustina’s crusade to take Savannah, the deep-water port of former Georgia, off the occupying Chinese and hand it on a platter to the resurgent city-states of the Tennessee River Valley.
Me being me, not doing “action” well, most of it will be about the people and their relationships. In this case, we start off with the government of Knoxville defining their problem and facing up to the only solution: the use of force. The fact that a demi-human girl has a near monopoly on said force is another thing entirely.
As you can tell from my posting, I was lost for days about one simple question: how is Faustina paying for all this? No matter what they feel for her, troops expect to be paid and weapons cost money… a lot of money. Until I had that answer given to me – and when it happened at DayJob on Monday and I burst out laughing (confirming their suspicions that I’m mental) – I could not write a word. Here’s half of what I laid down. More tonight or tomorrow!
Crusade, Part 1, Sunset
I kinda/sorta knew where and how to wrap up part 1 but the details eluded me for a couple of days. I was able to make some notes yesterday and had a final image early this morning to bring my “prologue” to an end. My 13.8k prologue…
From first meeting her in “Worlds Without End” I knew Faustina was going to be a very interesting person and all this has confirmed my suspicions. Part 2 will be about her Savannah campaign – what prompted it, how she got involved, the way south, and the battle and aftermath.
Little Aurelia in this installment just handed me the arc of part 3: a campaign to the lower Mississippi: not bringing nuclear power and civilization like the early Knoxville Society did in “Echoes of Family Lost,” but a straight-up neo-imperial effort to establish colonies and client-kingdoms between former eastern Tennessee and the Republic of Texas.
Depending on the length of all that, part 4 will either be an epilogue pointing to a sequel or it will make this one of my longest works as Faustina leads an army to St. Louis… and the massive political-military ramifications of such an act. Yeah… that might best be its own book… The Black Muslim Brotherhood that controls that area; the remnants of central Canadians coming south, fleeing the advancing ice… Complicated.
Harpy
Battles are still very difficult for me. I do jaw-jaw better than war-war. This 12k word prologue should wrap up in the next installment as they fly home. Then we will learn how Fussy scaled one cohort up to two legions and led her first crusade, to Savannah.
I am as curious as you are!
“Speak the word…the word is all of us”
For those who’ve not been following along, this is a continuation of yesterday’s post and the latest story of Faustina’s recollections about building her private army. Many things going on… when this becomes a novel it will likely take two chapters to unpack.
Deus Volt
Ever since I met her in “Worlds Without End,” I knew that Faustina, Gary Hartmann’s slightly younger sister, would have her own novel.
I just didn’t expect to have her showing me things so soon.
Like all of my stories, as I learned from Jerry Pournelle, this is starting in the middle: set maybe five or eight years after WWE, Faustina has led her personal army from Knoxville over the mountains and down the river to take the important port city of Savannah. At great cost to herself.
I confess that, as always, I’ve no idea at all where this is going and am interested as you are…
machciv 