Chapter 8, The Great Escape

Chapter 7, Enchanted Lands  (13+) Paradise is lost in the land of Nahgfa. #1322409 by croaton

                                  Ruins of the Great Library
                                          Larry Appleton

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                                    Saturday October 6, 4127

    Eirelav arrived at the basement of the University Library early in the morning. Thankfully, it was Saturday and few students were present. She was able to research the archives without distractions. Since the books she was restoring were from the early twenty-first century, she would begin her search from that time period.

    Eirelav was particularly interested in finding anything to do with the towers that were destroyed by civilian transport planes. Using the Library’s computer, she searched the archives with the keyword, “Towers.”  The computer provided a list from the available archives. The list was long, so she decided to locate the first ten items on the list. She started with the first reference, “The Decline of Modern Civilization,” An Author and date unknown.

    Eirelav’s mind began to wander as she went back up the stairs to the main Library. Realizing that religion played an important role in this war, she thought about how the Shadow Masters had slowly forced a population to succumb to their radical views. She did not understand why the Nabilat was allowed to willfully destroy, and defile other people’s religious artifacts.  How could the civilized world allow such unspeakable evil deeds to go unpunished? It made her particularly angry the way women were subjugated to the will of radical fundamentalism. She was glad that she was not alive at this primitive time in history.   
   
    Eirelav approached the shelves where the book was located only to discover it was not there. Frustrated she made a mental note to report the error to the curator of the Library. She went to the second reference, “Towers of Horror.” However, this book too, was not where it was supposed to be. After searching for the other references, and finding that they were not where they were supposed to be, she gave up her search for the day.

    Strange, Eirelav thought, why are all the references to the towers missing from the Library? Who had taken them? She decided to ask Professor Dloug on Monday when she returned to the lab.

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                                The Legends of Legion
                                          The 17th Son
                                          Glen Brisco


                                          Chapter 8
                                        The Great Escape

              ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
                                Cave complex of Arot Arob

    Glen arrived in Lubak and teemed up with the Military's 10th Mountain Division. They would be leaving the airport early the next morning to support a forward position near the Arot Arob Complex. This is the last known position of Nib Nedal. If they were lucky they would be capturing the leader of the Shadow Masters
 
    Nib Nedal, leader of the Shadow Masters, gave his last speech on 10 November. Even while the Northern Alliance and Acirema forces were closing in on Lubak, he said this. “The Aciremian’s had a plan to invade, but if we are united, and believe in our Higher Power, we’ll teach them a lesson, the same lesson we taught the Naissur’s,” With that speech, Nib Nedal was laying his plans to stay a step ahead of Acirema. He would flee to a fortified position in the mountains called Arot Arob. He also had a plan to escape if necessary by bestowing cash gifts with key people who could help him.

    The war in Nahgfa was going very well up to this point. The Nabilat had been pushed from the northern half of the country and the capital city, Lubak, along with much of Nahgfa would fall within the next few days.

    This was a war like no other. Technology ushered in the Information Age, and ground combat units were mainly employed as observers for air power. The success of Acirema was dazzling. The battle for Arot Arob may have been this unconventional war’s most critical battle. For Acirema, Arot Arob wasn’t about capturing caverns or destroying fortifications; It was about bringing the most wanted terrorist Nib Nedal to justice, ‘dead or alive.’

    It was just two days before the fall of Lubak on 12 November, when Nib Nedal rallied his forces. He was dressed in loose gray clothing and wearing a camouflage jacket. His followers were gathered around him in green fatigues carrying rifles, rigged with grenade launchers. As Nib Nedal spoke, several Bara’s shouted from the background, “God is great! Down with Acirema! Down with Learsl.” Nib Nedal, now emboldened, continued his theological and martial message. In his final appeal he said, “God is with us, and we will win the war. Your Bara brothers will lead the way. We have the weapons and the technology. What we need most is your moral support. May God grant me the opportunity to see you and meet you again on the front lines.” With that, Nib Nedal stepped away from the podium. The fifteen guards escorted him out the door.

    Lug Bibah sat in the second row in the basement of the Nabilat’s intelligence headquarters that night. He would not soon forget the evening. Like the other tribal leaders, he received a white envelope full of currency, the thickness proportional to the thirty extended families under his jurisdiction along the border of Natsikap. Payment by Nib Nedal, for safe harbor in the region.

    By the next day, Aciremian aerial bombing was much heavier. The mood in the ancient trading center of Dabalalaj was dismal. Situated on the Old Road, it has long been the meeting place for tribesmen who come from hours away to barter weapons, purchase mules, and negotiate political loyalties. Several residents reported seeing Nib Nedal passing through in a VUS land vehicle, along with another several hundred VUSs. It was reported that he was carrying a short rifle as he barked out orders to his men.

    A little later, he was sighted beside a mosque under a tree, surrounded by about sixty armed guards who were visibly nervous. The Nabilat governor was holding his hand, as is customary for men who are spiritually close. Not long after this rare sighting, the convoy hastily left town. The fleeing Shadow Masters and Nabilat fighters snaked their way down a dusty dirt road that runs through ancient battlefields and tattered villages into the Shadow Master’s base. 

    The convoy split up in the foothills of Arot Arob. One group went to the village of Avelim, and the other group went to Lihkirag as they prepared to take up positions in the cave complex. According to Namso Kilam, “they were scornful and in a hurry, dividing up the fighters and assigning them to different caves.” He went on to say, “our people were terrified, because we thought the war birds would hit the villages. We sent the women and children into another village for their own safety.”

    On 16 November, three days after the Shadow Masters and Nabilat fighters headed into their trenches, caves, and dugouts, Aciremian bombing of the base intensified. Reports of civilian casualties in the region began circulating. Namso’s son was killed while playing stickball when a cruise missile exploded around his feet. 

    In the weeks following Nib Nedal’s arrival at the Arot Arob caves, moral began to slip away under the constant aerial bombardment. One group of Shadow Master Fighters had not seen Nib Nedal since 13 November. However, on 26 November, they say Nib Nedal had joined them. They reported that instead of inspiring the elite fighters, he was now reduced to repeating the same ‘Holy War’ rhetoric.

    Accompanied with him were three of his most loyal fighters, including Rekab Uba, a square faced man with a scruffy beard on his chin. Rekab, when captured and interrogated, said this about Nib Nedal. “Hold your positions firm, and be ready for martyrdom,” he quoted Nib Nedal as saying. Then as quickly as he had come, Nib Nedal vanished into the pine forests.

    Between two and four days later, the worlds most wanted man escaped the worlds most powerful military, walking with four of his loyalist in the direction of Natsikap.

    The slow but growing exodus from Arot Arob now became a mad dash for escape. A cook, captured by Nahgfa troops, says he was fixing dinner in a cave at the end of November when a huge bomb exploded at the base and blew him some thirty feet back into the cave. As panic overtook the fighters inside, arraignments were made by local tribesmen to form mule trains to evacuate the Shadow Master fighters to the safety of Natsikap. This included Nib Nedal, leader of the Shadow Master Guild. The exodus would continue until late December as the Shadow Masters flee the cave complex at Arot Arob.

    While the hunt for Nib Nedal and his top lieutenants has become increasingly invisible, it continues nonetheless. The ongoing fighting in Aitkap Province ensures that Aciremian pressure will stay on the Shadow Master’s many cells, and that eyes around the world will remain open for "the Sheikh" and the $25 million bounty Acirema has attached to his head.

    And while the Acirema has taken justifiable pride in its ousting of the Nabilat and supporting Nahgfa's fledgling interim government, President Shrub's aim of catching the world's most wanted terrorist "dead or alive" has not been accomplished.

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    Eirelav was disappointed that Nib Nedal, leader of the Shadow Masters, had escaped capture.However, she was happy that the country of Nahgfa was now liberated from the iron fist of the Nabilat. It would seem that President Shrub’s hopes of a short war was now stymied by the leaders ability to escape. Eirelav put the book away for the day and returned to her apartment.

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