Chapter 30: Watching the Slaughter from Above

The ninety minutes passed in tense, breathless silence across the Tactical Operations Center.

On the colossal holographic display, the red operational tracks of the one hundred and twelve invading ships converged directly outside the natural deep-water bay of the Beastkin settlement.

Through the high-altitude, stabilized 4K lens of the MQ-9 Reaper orbiting at twenty thousand feet, the scene below unfolded with sickening clarity.

At first, the Beastkin seemed to treat the massive arrival with standard caution rather than outright terror. Horns sounded along the timber palisades. A contingent of roughly two hundred wolf and feline guards, clad in hardened leather and wielding long iron spears, rushed down to the wooden piers. A small, three-masted trade skiff even untied from the dock and began rowing out toward the lead galleon, likely intending to offer harbor guidance or demand customs duties.

They never got the chance.

The lead galleons did not lower anchor. Instead, their crews hauled hard on their port-side rigging, swinging their massive hulls parallel to the shore in a coordinated, line-abreast combat formation. Heavy, square gunports along the wooden hulls flipped upward in rapid succession.

Dark, iron cylindrical barrels were shoved out into the open air.

John’s eyes narrowed slightly. "Are those... black-powder cannons?"

"Thermal bloom detected across the hostile battle line!" the sensor operator shouted.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

A blinding, rolling barrage of orange muzzle flashes and thick clouds of white-gray smoke erupted from the sides of the warships. A split-second later, dozens of solid iron cannonballs and flaming alchemical shot tore across the short stretch of water at blistering speed.

CRASH! KABOOM! SPLINTER!

The peaceful harbor was shattered in an instant.

The small Beastkin delegation skiff took a direct hit from a volley of three heavy round-shots, the wooden hull instantly disintegrating into a shower of flying splinters and churning foam.

On the shore, the devastating bombardment struck the crowded timber docks and beachfront warehouses. Heavy iron cannonballs punched clean through thick oak piers, collapsing wooden walkways into the water and crushing dozens of dockworkers beneath falling beams. Fiery alchemical rounds ignited the dried thatch roofs of the coastal workshops, sending billowing black smoke and roaring pillars of flame into the clear afternoon sky.

Screams, muffled by the distance of the high-altitude drone feed, rippled through the settlement.

The peaceful frontier trading hub was instantly transformed into a slaughterhouse.

"Reaper Three, give me maximum optical zoom on the lead warship’s quarterdeck," John ordered coldly, stepping closer to the tactical railing. "Let’s see who’s pulling the triggers."

"Zooming optics now, Commander. 50x electro-optical lock."

The primary screen shifted, focusing sharply on the command deck of the three-deck flagship.

Standing beneath a fluttering crimson banner bearing a golden radiant sun was an officer dressed in ornate, polished steel plate armor trimmed with gold leaf. He held a brass spyglass in one hand and an unsheathed, double-edged broadsword in the other. Surrounding him were archers with longbows, musketeers loading matchlock-style longarms, and sailors handling heavy iron swivel guns.

Their faces were entirely exposed to the sunlight.

Pale skin, rounded ears, and standard human features.

"Hostiles are confirmed human, sir," the intelligence officer stated, his voice laced with grim certainty. "Standard biological baseline. No animal traits, no elven features. They bear the standard arms and armor of an organized human feudal empire."

John stood with his arms crossed, his expression hardening into stone as he watched the monitor. "Humans. Bombarding an unprovoked non-human settlement with naval artillery."

Down on the ground, the Beastkin attempted a desperate, ferocious defense.

Despite having zero modern armor and no artillery to counter the ships, the Therianthropes proved why they were feared in close quarters. Towering ursine warriors, their thick fur bristling with rage, grabbed massive wooden shields and charged toward the burning docks to pull wounded kin out of the flaming debris. Feline demi-humans sprinted up the stairwells of the wooden watchtowers, firing volleys of heavy recurve bow arrows at the ships.

A few skilled beastkin archers managed to pick off deckhands exposed on the rigging, and several large wolf warriors hurled heavy throwing axes with enough brute force to crack through the hulls of smaller landing skiffs.

But against disciplined, long-range naval artillery, raw physical strength and primitive courage were entirely useless.

The warships fired broadside after broadside with methodical, rhythmic cruelty. Cannonballs systematically pulverized the wooden watchtowers, snapping the support beams and sending the beastkin archers crashing into the inferno below. Shrapnel, iron balls, and incendiary pots rained down across the market squares, tearing through the civilian quarters and turning the streets into a maze of blazing rubble.

Whenever the Beastkin tried to mass a counterattack at the beachhead, another coordinated broadside would rip through their ranks, blowing limbs apart and driving the survivors back into the burning ruins of the town.

"Hostile landing craft deploying," the tactical watch officer reported. "Forty-eight heavy transport barges dropping ramps."

With the harbor defenses thoroughly suppressed and the palisades breached in multiple sectors, the human invasion fleet lowered dozens of flat-bottomed landing barges into the bay.

Oars dipped into the bloody, debris-strewn water, pushing thousands of heavily armored human soldiers onto the shore.

The front ramps slammed down onto the wet sand.

Steel-clad human infantry poured out in tight, disciplined shield walls, backed by rows of spearmen and crossbowmen. They did not advance with the intention of negotiating, taking a defensive foothold, or merely securing the port.

They advanced with the sole objective of total, merciless subjugation.

Any wounded beastkin warrior who attempted to stand and fight was immediately impaled by a dozen spear points or shot down by volleys of heavy crossbow bolts. The human soldiers swept through the burning streets methodically, kicking down the doors of longhouses and workshops.

The drone’s high-definition camera captured the horrific scenes in agonizing detail.

Older beastkin males and warriors who resisted were cut down where they stood, their bodies left in the dirt. But the human soldiers were actively sparing another group.

Armored infantry dragged screaming feline and wolf demi-human women out of burning houses by their hair, throwing heavy iron slave collars around their necks and binding their wrists in thick chains. Young beastkin children, crying hysterically as they clung to their fallen parents, were ripped away and shoved brutally into iron-barred wooden cage carts that were being rolled off the transport ships onto the shore.

It was not a standard military occupation.

It was a full-scale slaving raid.

A young wolf-kin woman, clutching a toddler to her chest, desperately tried to scale a broken stone wall to escape into the rear forest. A human soldier in steel armor ran up behind her, drove the butt of his spear violently into the back of her knees, and wrenched the child from her arms before throwing an iron restraint over her neck.

The operators and officers watched the atrocities on the high-definition screens with clenched jaws and pale knuckles.

John stood completely still at the central briefing rail. His fingers dug slowly into the textured steel bar, his sharp blue eyes burning with cold, dangerous fury as he watched the human slavers drag chained families toward their landing ships.

"Systematic slaughter of defenders, mass capture of non-combatants, and total destruction of civilian infrastructure," the intelligence officer murmured quietly, reading the live data feeds. "They’re rounding up hundreds of them into holding cages on the main beach."

John didn’t take his eyes off the screen.

The initial plan for a quiet, three-day diplomatic landing with a single landing craft was completely dead. The reality of this brutal, feudal world had just laid itself bare right before his eyes.

"Operations," John spoke, his voice low, deadly calm, and carrying the absolute weight of a commander who had made his decision.

"Sir?"

"We’re going in."