Amok 1000 in the lead APC fired two anti-tank missiles into the entrance outpost, blowing it up together with the guards that were waving their hands for the convoy to stop. The APC’s did not slow down. They barreled through the entrance’s barriers and into the base. Avatars jumped off the APC’s. Now armed with AK 470 assault rifles and Dragun sniper rifles acquisitioned from the police station, they shot at any and all personnel visible to them with their usual accuracy and proficiency. Their speed made them look like moving blue and red specters to the humans, making it impossible for the latter to shoot back at them accurately.

All over the airbase, surprised human defenders fell to one or two bullets shot with inhuman precision into their heads and thoraxes.

One undetected airman in a weapons depot managed to fire an RPG toward a squad of avatars from a small window on the second floor. Two of the avatars took fatal shrapnel hits to the brain. Their teammates suffered wounds that would have been fatal to humans, but their bodies reacted by beginning to heal immediately. One of them picked herself off the ground, a short length of ileum showing out of a hole through her anterior abdominal wall. She aimed at the RPG bearer with her Dragun rifle, and shot him through the forehead at two hundred meters.

The wounded avatar relaxed her abdominal muscles in order to lessen the pressure inside the abdominal cavity, pushed her intestine back in, took out an absorbable suture from a shirt pocket, and began suturing and closing the hole. The other survivors did the same procedure on their lacerations, applied airtight patches on thorax wounds in order to prevent pneumothorax, and realigned fractured limbs. The wounded avatars then took out Bugu coins from their cargo pants’ pockets and swallowed them in order to aid their preternaturally fast healing processes. Their two dead comrades dissipated into blue and red dust.

In a few minutes, the entire base had fallen to the Dumots.

‘Sugo, tune in to the military landlines.’ Lili turned to the avatars. ‘Listen to this.’

A speaker on a table computer in front of Lili was broadcasting the last words of a radioman.

‘Yes sir. I can confirm that Dulonan Airbase has fallen to Dumots. Army bases along the border must be warned. There are less than a hundred Dumots involved, on a dozen APCs taken from the Dulonan City Central Police station.’

‘Yes sir. You can assume all our base equipment and aircraft are now in their hands when you counter-attack.’

#5 - <This is one of the critical games in her road the championship.>

#6 - <A reference to an unsual comment about funnel cakes>

#20 - <Now, treat the chess move as hexademical numbers>

#26 - <At that stage, there are no expamples of Fischer playing the position.>

On top of which, #16 seems to imply that the title "Inconceivable" has something to do with YouTube, and #19 just plain hurts the eyes... and #3 treats the name "Siri" as if it were an acronym.

(I'll do the rounds at New Year's as usual...)

<WinKing> btw, you're still on for running the next Spring leg at the Bookie, I hope? :)

I don't agree with that either - but my complaint was always more about "hexademical"...

And as <Ohio> noted, #5 is still wrong, just in a different way.

<Anyways, how do you feel about running the Championship leg at the moment? ;)>

<#5> but it's right in the title! ;p

(Viewing Events in Dulonan City After the Take-over of Dulonan Airbase: )

Three convoys made of APCs and Bramsa tanks roared out of Dulonan.

‘So that’s how a WDF aero drone surveillance video of an armored column looks like. Where are they headed?’ Bugsay asked.

‘I don’t know, but a combat avatar like me would cut off the main bridge over Dulonan River that links Dulonan City to the Central Antigua Nations, secure the Buwag Mountain pass to the Iladistani north west regions, and take the Linaw naval base south of Dulonan City,’ Ihap conjectured. ‘Captain Sugo, are the Veiled Commission codes Commissioner Duwa transmitted to you via our quantum encrypted channel still allowing you access to WDF communications?’

Captain Sugo nodded. ‘Yes. It’s remarkable; it seems that the WDF has access to practically all Teran communications and broadcasts, and now so do I, just as Commissioner Duwa promised. I don’t know how long this will last though. The Commissioners have not notified me for how long this will continue. I’ll patch in to the Dumots’ communications again. This is a recording of their CO’s orders a few minutes ago.’

Amok 1000’s voice came out of the computer speakers.

‘As you know we are spread thin. We have sent avatars all over Dulonan province in order to purge the towns of police and military and to neutralize Unitemplist presence. They carried out the purge of the potential armed groups simultaneously with our attack on Dulonan airbase, but as of now are still busy neutralizing Unitemplists. We also have to employ avatars to occupy this base. However priority is to secure three important strategic positions.’

‘Convoy 1: Cut off the main bridge over Dulonan River. I’m assigning five avatars. CO is Amok 1001. Take a Bramsa tank and an APC. You are to neutralize the Iladistani border guards by the river, and forcibly disallow any further traffic through the bridge.

Convoy 2: Take the main army base on the northern part of the Buwag mountain range. If you fail, fall back and secure the North Buwag Mountain pass. Block that pass. Destroy any and all Iladistani forces that try to cross into Dulonan Province from the North. I am assigning 40 avatars. CO is Amok 1006. Take five Bramsa tanks and ten APCs.

Convoy 3: Take the naval base in Linaw Province south of Dulonan City. It is on the shore side of Linaw lake and swampland, with only one large highway leading to it. If you succeed, prep yourselves for receiving supply ships from Alogostan. I am assigning 40 avatars. CO is Amok 1050. Take five Bramsa tanks and 15 APCs. You should easily succeed. It’s a naval base and isn’t as heavily defended from land attacks, unlike the Buwag Army base.

East of our area is the southeast extension of the Buwag mountain range that provides a barrier to the rest of central Iladistan. The two squads I have previously sent have already destroyed the two main mountain bridges there.

If we succeed in our tasks above, we would have secured Dulonan airbase in a small south western portion of Iladistan, and with it most of its aircraft assets.’

Ihap was nodding in agreement. ‘See, they are following my recommendations.’

‘It’s not only the strategic and military value of those bases,’ Lili added. ‘Western Iladistan during the Great Dark War was a majority Unitemplist region, and culturally closer to the central Antiguan nations, which possess sizable Iladistani minority groups. I know this quite well because I grew up there during my stint as a child bride. In Western Iladistan, food and dishes taste blander. People tend to abstain from alcohol, nicotine, and any kind of drug. They wear robes, scarfs, and veils a lot more than Easterners. Women are generally prohibited from working and end up mostly as closeted wives in Buya marriages. The Western dialect has been enforced as standard Iladistani since the Unitemplist takeover. However, much of Central and Eastern Iladistan has resisted and still retain their dialects. When I was assigned in eastern Ngit-ngit City in the past, and I did not want to be bothered by questions, I just spoke in an exaggerated Western accent and answered that I had just transferred to the city because I was poor and I heard working in the Piers as a vendor paid off well, something that I could not do in Western Iladistan. That explained to nosy Easterners why I had no family and was unfamiliar with some of the City’s details.’