Dawn of the Epoch

Chapter LXXV - The Coastal Occupation

In and around Genoa, a curfew remained in effect from six in the evening until six in the morning. The barbaric yzorak-al’ghul patrolled the streets assiduously. The curfew was strictly enforced. The penalty for breaking it was immediate disintegration by death ray. Hundreds died at the merciless hands of the ignorant movers of Ghaelvord’s megalomaniac will.

Eurofighter Typhoons, U.S. F-16s, and other combat aircraft crisscrossed the skies twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The aviators were dumbfounded, however, by an uncanny low-hanging cloud cover that bobbed and wove with sphinxlike fluidity. The cloud expanded and moved proactively to draw an impenetrable veil over the operations of the ghoul army’s ground forces.

The aviators quickly realized that the yzorak army had set up 200-millimeter surface-to-air ray cannons throughout the city. If the bombers flew too close to the cloud, particle rays would burst from the mist and shred them. Ghaelvord had created the cloud with Aldenduenum technology and used it in combination with the cannons to effectively emasculate the Allied Air Force.

The battle lines shifted constantly. The Italian and United Nations forces had taken Cogoleto to the southwest of Genoa along the Autostrada dei Fiori. At times, they thought that they had secured Arenzano, but a surge from the mountains to the north would beat the infantry back each time it began to secure its recently-captured position. To the east, the Allied Forces did not fare as well. They had no problem taking La Spezia, but every advance along the coast from La Spezia to Sestri Levante was bombarded relentlessly from the hills of Pieve Ligure. The yzorak army took the high ground early on and dug in, making the hills and mountains along the coast insurmountably dangerous for the ground forces of the Allied army. The yzorak army had an almost perfect lock on the mountains rising up north of Genoa. The rocky ridges proved to be utterly impassable. The army had destroyed all of the roads coming into town. Sometimes, the ghouls waited for a mobile unit to attempt to pass a road, and then unleashed a devastating ray barrage that would not only eliminate the unit, but would turn the scrap from the vehicles into an impassible crater of scorched earth.

The Naval Forces fared better, but not by much. The ships quickly realized that particle ray cannons had also been set up along the shore. The shipyards held a large concentration of the enormous weapons. The cannons kept the ships at bay, but the ships were able to do some damage. The energized particles of the ray cannons fizzled and dissipated at about two miles from shore. Consequently, the ships with computerized aiming systems could fire rifle rounds with some accuracy into the city. If they fired anything bigger than a bullet, the ray cannons would track it and disintegrate it long before it reached the shore. On a clear day with no wind, the Naval Forces’ rifle squads killed a handful of ghouls from incredibly long distances.

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