Tabula Rasa Journal: Valverde Plateau
For: Allied Free Sentients High Command
Classification: Above Top Secret; Eyes Only
Item: Spy Journal recovered at (deleted for security purposes)
Excerpt as Follows:
"Name's Alex Stallworth, Unit Rank (deleted), Lvl 33 Spy, AFS Elite Shoctroops. I've been pinned down in this observation tower for the last several hours. Gonna try to make a run for it as soon as its dark. Bane patrols are pretty light around here after dark. Not that I think Crusty is sleeping. Truth be told, I think something big is coming, and I couldn't get anyone to see it.
My unit was the AFS Elite Shoctroops. There were about 70 of us at one time. We've pretty much been wiped out. Down to three others I know of, and I haven't seen or heard from those other two in several hours. Maybe, if I don't make it, someone will read this and finally start paying attention. Either that or they're gonna have another Fort Intrepid on their hands.
Last several days, my unit had been operating out of the Wedge Rock Outpost, and things weren't going well. I know the AFS line about Valverde. We're taking the fight to Crusty and all that stuff from the General: "We can't afford to rest. We can't afford to retreat. We attack. We always attack." Thing is, that's just not happening. Just some good news fluff to shore up morale. We've been pretty much operating on our own out here, and losing people everyday.
Fought with a lot of good people on the Torden Plains�and other places, men and women who really knew what they were doing. Problem is, I haven't seen any of them on Valverde. Maybe they are still on Torden, on the Mires or the Incline, but (expletive deleted) Valverde Plateu is where we need them, like NOW.
Anyway, this is how I see it. Crusty's been able to hold all four of the main control points, Northwest, Northeast, Southeast and Southwest, pretty much constantly. We'd manage to take back Northwest or Northeast, but we weren't able to hold out for more than one or two counterattacks before Crusty took them back again. We're talking big enemy raiding parties, too. Bigger than anything I'd seen near the Lightning Fields on Torden Plains. They'd just overwhelm us.
You control those four locations, and you control the plateau. Don't know why no one else sees this. Just look at the (expletive deleted) map for (expletive deleted.) All we have is Fort Defiance in the north. There hasn't been any major attack on Wedge Rock yet, but that's kinda part of what is weird about all this.
We were assigned to near base patrols. That was pretty much confined to a lightly forested area just east of Wedge Rock. Nothing special about it. Not even much to look at, but Crusty has been all over it these past three days. Regular probes by teams of three coming out of the north, the east and the south. All kinds of Bane, even the big Kaels. We'd no sooner wipe out one group of them before we'd find another trying to move in. I've never seen Crusty so interested in a little piece of real estate. The first day out, I stopped counting at 150 kills. You do the math. That's at least 50 Crusty patrols in a day.
Once and awhile, we'd get this reconaissance in force out of Fort Defiance. I patrolled with them a couple of times, just waiting for Crusty to show himself like he had been, but here's the thing. They NEVER attacked the Defiance patrols, just laid low until they were gone again and then they would be back to hitting us, whittling us down. We'd take out four or five of them for every one of ours we'd lose, but still. Got pretty good at nailing them with carpet bombing, then lightning storm, and hardly ever had to do the close in work with my blades.
But today was the worst. We were down to three by then. Mostly we were just getting by through picking up people from stray units. Then we managed to take back the Northeast control point. The three of us headed up there to help defend it, try to hold onto the (expletive deleted) thing for awhile at least, you know? But we didn't even manage to hold them off once. We took out the rear control point attack�pretty easily, but that's what Crusty does: First assault on one entrance. Assault two at the other gate. Then Assault three back at the first entrance. Gets you running back and forth and it's all over when the force field comes down. I barely made it out alive. Got separated from the last two guys in my unit. Armor was almost down to nothing.
I'd barely recharged it before I stumbled onto a firefight at the base of that huge Eloh bridge over Valverde Chasm. I was the only one to make it out. I made my way back toward Wedge Rock and couldn't believe what I found. Not one but TWO Bane patrols at the (expletive deleted) base of the hill below Wedge Rock Outpost. The laser turrets weren't even firing on them. I just don't get it. Three days we're dropping loot we took off dead Bane soldiers, and I can't even get the outpost commander (name deleted) to look up from his (expletive deleted) paperwork.
I managed to take down both patrols. Got down to hand to hand and my prototype ChiTech incendiary blade. Let me put it this way: those Benihana chefs ain't got nothing on me.
Standing up on that hill leading down from the outpost, it finally dawned on me. You control that little patch of ground we've been bloodying each other over these past three days, and you control a chokepoint that covers the entrance to the Valverde Chasm, the main route to the Trinity Bridge, the main route to the Northeast control point, and the route back to Fort Defiance. See where I'm going with this now? They gotta been planning a massive hit on Fort Defiance out of those four control points, just like they did on Ligo with Fort Intrepid.
I just picked up the Polymorph ability. So it's finally time to do some spying. I'll have two minutes before I have to recharged the thing again to look like a Bane foot soldier. About to head out now. I figure the disguise will let me reconoiter the control point�a little before I make a run for it. Gotta see what I can find out. Wish me luck. Shoctroopers rock!"
(Excerpt ends here)
