[center][h3][color=C0392B]Rudolf Shilage[/color][/h3][/center]

[hider=Hold on, let's make everyone's life easy]
[i]The ride out to the far south was as smooth as you could expect, given the need for haste at the timetable Kayliss had set. The quadrant of diamonds jostled as three or four gazes pored over them, hastily stamped onto a field of white that only saw a band of austral forest and the northern wall of the muted city itself to break things up. As maps to plot an operation around went, it was...

[color=c0392b]"Pretty sparse on detail."[/color] Rudolf observed bluntly, breaking the tense silence that had fallen over the bigger half of the Kirins. It spoke to the dire straits the proper military arm of even the cloistered kings of winter had been forced into that this was the intelligence picture they'd been able to put forward. He knew well enough by now how deeply the apparatus really ran at full muster— but that meant time and measure beyond their current means. He glanced Esben's way, but the SEED didn't rise to any implication, real or imagined— just continuing instead to pin the map with his gaze, searching hungrily. Rudolf returned his own to it a moment later. [color=c0392b]"Right. Let me eyeball a couple distribution plots between these guys, then. Without heading or clear avenues of movement fostered by terrain..."[/color]

A set of lines were pulled across another sheet of parchment laid atop the first, backlighting spilling through both. [color=c0392b]"We'll be coming in from the Northwest into a landing zone just past the treeline. Since we're expecting an uncontested approach, my guess for any out-of-field staging areas is going to lean more to the east than the north."[/color]

Turbulence shook the airship again. He frowned, readjusting the map and plot. [color=c0392b]"Since I'm more confident in that second correlation than the first..."[/color]

From each diamond plotted, a quartet of vectors streamed out, intersecting with the aforementioned regression line as it extended into the drifts that dominated Solitude's northern approach. The silence and grimace from him, after pulling an ellipse around his "best guess", were all but deafening. He really only had two boundaries to go off of, and no sense of bearing beyond them. He could be way, [i]way[/i] off base—

[color=#b3ccff]"I would consider that no sign they're in the city proper isn't proof enough to assume they don't have a base within the city—expect reprisal to come from that direction. If they had a dedicated airfield or other staging area that was still on this side of Solitude I think the patrols would have laid eyes on it already."[/color] Esben finally added, nothing hopeful on his tone. [color=#b3ccff]"Kayliss already told us once that any patrols or agents sent into Solitude proper haven't returned, after all."[/color]

The charcoal tapped hard into the dais, as though he wanted to stab straight through the bottom of the hull. [color=c0392b]"Shit. That's true."[/color] the young man spoke through his teeth, amending his misgivings to [i]one[/i] boundary. [color=c0392b]"Ugh... And we won't know until we're there how bad the snow's going to exacerbate the hills for either them or us. Their fallback and staging areas could be east [i]or[/i] south, given what you just said..."[/color]

Setting the charcoal down, the young man pinched the bridge of his nose, mind steaming as it fought to find a way to forge something workable out of this.

[color=c0392b]"Looks like we're gonna have to start with in situ reconnaissance then, no other way around it with these gaps. That'll be us leaning on you guys, obviously. So, fuck it, from the top..."[/color][/i]
[/hider]
 
[hr][b]...[/b][sup]1[/sup][hr]

As the Kirins touched down and began to disembark, Rudolf brought up the rear on the gangplank, savoring the relative warmth of ground-level air coated in propellant friction. Between Eliane and Esben, once he'd had his fill of trying to outline his initial analysis of what they'd been flying into he had meant to fall relatively silent, stepping back out of their way. They were the ones on their home turf, after all, preexisting within Skaeller command structure. Naturally, the woman that seemed to be the head of the skirmishers attached to their deployment was already reporting to the latter. It was a cool evening, the same as many they'd seen this far south. Snows were present, but thankfully not so heavy as to occlude visibility— not yet, at any rate. Eliane knew the rises beneath the drifts from what she'd mentioned in the past— they'd be able to lean on that rather than try to account for wild shifts in elevation at the hands of Saint Shiva's whims.[sup]2[/sup]

He busied himself instead with mulling over his mission estimation. Starting with order of battle and task analysis: [b]The four Kirins, and their attached dozen riflemen, were to raid and destroy the four detected Valheimr outposts no later than ten hours from this point in order to deny Valheim their control of the northern approach to Solitude, and seize potential staging areas to enable subsequent operations to retake the city from the unknown threats within.[/b] This necessitated a total end to the enemy's presence— taking out whatever infrastructure they had set in place as well as inflicting heavy loss to the manpower they could muster. "Erased", in his mind, meant to leave nothing standing. Put the men to the sword, put the motte to the torch.[sup]3[/sup]

It was a tall ask for a force this small, even when headed by people as battle-hardened to impossible situations as them— in his estimation, their lynchpin was going to be the element of surprise once night fell. Esben and Chisato were highly-trained at covert operations of all breeds. By virtue of his demonic pact, Rudolf himself moved with an unnaturally muffled step, and his black armor would melt into shadow.[sup]4[/sup] Even Eliane, for all she disagreed with the method, had received [i]some[/i] of the Garden's training. 

After their information picture cleared up, the four of them would be able to coordinate an assault apiece to simultaneously raze these outer toeholds, minimizing the enemy's chance to raise alarm, muster defence, and communicate with the larger occupational force presumably stationed nearby. Alone, each of the Kirins possessed ample fighting strength to tear into standard Valheimr infantry quickly— their expertise combined with the force projection of their attached skirmishers' reinforcement would carry them through the average squad, provided they weren't charging into a full stockade of mounted guns and reserve troops. He had to hope that there was no way they'd entrench that hard and that quickly. What else. Quality of command, terrain familiarity, simultaneous assault coordinated by shortwave... hopefully, information overmatch. It wouldn't do if their landing zone had already been pinpointed, or if they were spotted on the way into position. Any good raid relied on infiltration into, investigation regarding, and isolation of your key targets before you put spur to bird.

He glanced at their assembled forces. [color=c0392b][i]No birds.[/i][/color] Already, a diversion from what he'd been brough up in. A foot approach would in all fairness be likely quieter, leave less evidence of their movement pattern, and remove extra failure points to manage... but it meant that once kickoff hit, their final approach would be slower, and demand they get right under each outpost's nose. Their egress would be slower, too.

So, critical factors: They needed secure, stealthy routes of infiltration to get eyes on these things and place their forces down. They needed the ability to sustain communications between eachother— he had a feeling this would come as a combination of radios and a familiar pair of green and purple lights in the night air. As raiders, it would be paramount to maintain tempo— catch your enemy before he's ready, crush him before he can ready himself. To do any of that, this scouting period was going to be crucial. They needed an accurate picture of how each outpost was laid out, lest they felt like charging into trenches for a machine gun to pick off. The cover of nighttime would be their best friend here. If any of them were still fighting by daybreak, the mission had gone horribly wrong.

They were short on manpower, had a lot of gaps ISR would need to fill, and early compromise would likely damn the whole thing to mission creep well out of "raid". Already, they weren't geared to [i]sustain[/i] the control they would win in the event of success if necessary. For vulnerabilities, each one was pretty rough. Margins of error were never something you should allow to broaden, sure, but having these so narrow at the outset would put any aspiring tactician ill at ease.

[color=c0392b][i]Maybe I was on the right track when I pretended I started and stopped at the humble sabretooth.[/i][/color] he mused wryly, looking down to see how deep his sabatons sank into the accumulated snow beneath. [color=c0392b][i]I'm practically cooking myself trying to attack this. Esben must be having a great time in the driver's seat.[/i][/color]

[color=c0392b]"How current [i]are[/i] those reports?"[/color]

One question to help frame things, that was it. The rest the SEED and Dame-Commander could handle. No doubt they'd already considered most of the same things Rudolf had.[sup]5[/sup]

[hr][hr]
[list]
[*][sub]1. Here, let me chuck this bit in a hider. I can feel everything below it glazing my eyes over already, the last thing you all need is to sit through flavor text. Don't say I do nothing for you guys. [/sub]
[*][sub]2. Unless, y'know, Garland. [/sub]
[*][sub]2. Hey, you know who that sounds like? [/sub]
[*][sub]4. You're welcome, by the way. I seem to keep saying that. [/sub]
[*][sub]5. Does He Know? [/sub]
[/list]