Chapter 4: Nemesis

Read chapters sequentially. #1 first, #2 second, #3 third and #4 afterwards, if you please.

We must now temporarily leave the busy activities at Tranjapour, anticipations of the men there, thoughts of those approaching and our own contemplations regarding General Pettygree's next orders. In so doing, I ask you to turn your thoughts backward in time from the 15th to the 4th of September 1898/2008. As we do this, our imaginations leave terrain south of The Khyber Pass, which you now know so well, to parts north of it, to an unknown land hidden from eyes of most of the world.

You are about to enter a lofty area enclosed within an oval of high mountains. The only entrance was blocked by earthquakes of shocking magnitudes before the memory of men. Legend told of its existence. Reason and faded memories say it never did. Knowledge of it was guarded and harshly protected.

Here we find an unlikely mixture of desert and pine forests and some surprises you will see later. Twenty years before a few of the men you are about to witness sought asylum here to build a new homeland. It became a refuge for an old Nemesis to Imperial authority thought destroyed. No, not destroyed. It retreated here to restore and rebuild itself and the cause.

Welcome, but have a care. Watch from behind high boulders above and make your presence not known. No one outside the valley knows what you about to see. I do hope you make it back to Fort Grant alive. Ladies and Gentlemen, you are about to enter The Hidden Valley of Surajistan.




#44 Nemesis
4 Sept. 1898/2008. Tug force departs. Orders: Remove Imperials at Tranjapour and cut the telegraph wire to Fort Grant. Do distant storm clouds metaphorically reveal something?
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#45 Nemesis
4 Sept. 1898/2008.
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#46 Nemesis
4 Sept. 1898/2008.
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#47 Nemesis
4 Sept. 1898/2008.
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#48 Nemesis
4 Sept. 1898/2008.
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#49 Nemesis
4 Sept. 1898/2008.
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#50 Nemesis
4 Sept. 1898/2008. Tug attack force turns right to The Khyber Pass.
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#51 Nemesis
4 Sept. 1898/2008. Supreme Leader Muljadhi flanked by his General and Guru.
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We advance our clock three days to the 7th....

#52 Nemesis
7 September 1898/2008. Encamped at Khyber Pass exit before battle on the 8th. tomorrow. See Chapter 2 for The Battle of Japura Singh.
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We advance our clock further, this time eight days forward to the 15th....




#53 Nemesis
15 Sept. 1898/2008. We are back to where we left off at the end of Chapter 3. Tugs advance on Tranjapour in the forest. That's KHAN on horseback encouraging his warriors forward past the Spring of Gupta Dagmar.
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#54 Nemesis
15 Sept. 1898/2008. Tugs pass through the position where the 2nd. Sq. 10th Hussars were screening the foe not long ago.
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#55 Nemesis
15 Sept. 1898/2008. Tug infantry floods the forest en-route to Tranjapour.
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#56 Nemesis
16 Sept. 1898/2008. We return to where we left off in Chapter 3, Photo #43. Tranjapour is one day's march from here.


What contemplations do you have dear readers and viewers? What will new orders from General Pettygree demand? What of KHAN's attack force now so very close to Tranjapour? Indeed what will be the fate of the garrison of Tranjapour? Will works be built fast enough or not? Permit me to ask you to return in two weeks time to find out. Meanwhile, what do you think?
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