Chapter 19

  Western War

  [DATE: 01. CYCLE 12. INDUSTRIAL YEAR 40]

  ?[LOCATION: BLIN — LOWER SECTOR]

  ?[TIME: 04:20 LOCAL]

  ?[STATUS: OPERATION “BLACK UMBRA”]

  The nocturnal cycle in Blin had transpired beneath a merciless frigidity; a frost that was not content with vitrifying the dermis, but penetrated the very marrow like a silent premonition of the impending catastrophe. It was the terminal hour before the dawn, yet the horizon remained obsidian, suffocated by leaden clouds and industrial effluvium. Within a clandestine alley, an archaic tavern remained operational, discharging a frail, jaundiced luminescence over the saturated cobblestones.

  ?Inside, the atmosphere was weighted with tobacco miasma and the scent of synthetic alcohol. Several men were emitting stifled laughter, attempting to anesthetize the tactical tension of the conflict. The timber valve ruptured open with a dry percussion, permitting a current of glacial air to infiltrate. A man with an archaic cap and a freshly shaven visage entered with calibrated maneuvers.

  ?“Stefan, it is you,” one of the men at the counter stated, vacating a modicum of space. “What is your requirement?”

  ?“Merely a brew, men,” Stefan replied, seating himself amongst them with muscles still anchored in tension.

  ?As the barkeep initiated the filling of the chalice, the men coalesced around him, engineering a closed defensive perimeter. Their resonances subsided into a conspiratorial whisper.

  ?“Is there any intelligence?” one queried, his optics monitoring the door.

  “I am failing to establish communication with Voss,” Stefan replied.

  ?“Could he have been intercepted?” another added, his resonance vibrating slightly.

  ?“Impossible. They possess no predicate. The archives are secured in a coordinate unknown even to us,” the barkeep interjected, simulating the cleansing of the glassware.

  ?Stefan exhaled and consumed a protracted draught. To decompress his frame, he stretched slightly and rotated his cranium toward the terminus of the tavern. In that microsecond, his anatomy calcified. In an obsidian corner, where the luminescence barely reached, sat a man encased in a weighted black greatcoat. He was slowly rotating a vacuumed glass, but what petrified Stefan was the mask he wore—a surface that reflected the frail light in a macabre frequency.

  ?“Who is that entity there?” Stefan queried, leaning over the counter with a frigid sensation in his viscera.

  ?“Unidentified. I have never perceived him before,” the barkeep whispered without pivoting. “He has remained in stasis there the entire cycle. He ordered only water. He has articulated zero words.”

  ?Despite being flanked by his cohorts, Stefan sensed a lethal isolation. He drained the chalice in a single respiration and ascended with haste, abandoning several denominations upon the wood.

  ?“Men, pardon me, but I must egress immediately,” he stated with a severing resonance.

  ?“What transpired? You just materialized!” one of his allies queried, but Stefan was already navigating toward the portal without a retrograde glance.

  [LOCATION: LOWER SECTOR CONDUITS — BLIN]

  ?[TIME: 04:35 LOCAL]

  Stefan had managed to evacuate several hundred meters from the tavern, submerging himself within the labyrinthine apertures of the industrial district. Suddenly, the nocturnal stasis was lacerated by a rhythmic resonance—thud-thud-thud—weighted footfalls upon the saturated cobblestones emanating from a parallel alley. He accelerated his trajectory, attempting to evaporate his trail, but the resonance only intensified, reverberating off the high masonry ramparts as if encircling him from every vector.

  ?His cardiac rhythm surged into a manic cadence. In a microsecond of panic, Stefan pivoted his cranium to calibrate the distance to his pursuer, but when he rotated forward again, the temporal window had expired. He collided with a rigid, immobile mass and collapsed backward onto the frigid stones.

  ?“You are truly exhausting, Stefan... precisely like my primary-year students,” The Professor articulated. His coarse, sub-zero resonance induced a rigor in Stefan’s flesh more piercing than the Blin gale.

  ?“Who... who are you?” Stefan stammered, his respiration hemorrhaging from the impact and the terror.

  ?“My identity is an irrelevant variable,” The Professor stated, leaning slightly over him, his shadow eclipsing Stefan’s anatomy. “Only one constant remains: Where are the archives situated?”

  ?Despite attempting to shroud his dread beneath a mask of defiance, Stefan’s hands betrayed him. They vibrated with such intensity that any endeavor to ascend or locate a weapon was neutralized.

  ?“I possess no cognition of your articulation,” he replied, his resonance unstable.

  ?The Professor straightened his frame. From the lumbar of his black tunic, he extracted a compact sidearm equipped with a suppressor in a mechanical motion. The dark bore of the weapon was anchored directly upon Stefan’s frontal bone.

  [SUBJECT: THE PROFESSOR — ARMAMENT: M.SCHNELLFEUER 2000 / CALIBER: 7.65×25mm “BLACK-TIP”]

  “Understood,” The Professor stated, exhaling with a formidable indifference. “The encounter was acceptable, Stefan, but... entropy is inevitable.”

  ?In the nocturnal silence, Stefan’s terminal respiration manifested as a stifled gasp, before being brutally severed by the muffled ignition of the projectile perforating his cranium. His anatomy surrendered to lifelessness, while the thermal blood initiated the irrigation of Blin’s obsidian cobblestones.

  [OBJECTIVE: STEFAN ELIMINATED]

  The Professor returned the sidearm to his belt with the same stasis as if he were closing a volume. He extracted his ledger from an internal pocket and, with a severing motion of the stylus, struck another horizontal line through a nomenclature.

  [DATE: 01. CYCLE 12]

  [LOCATION: SECONDARY DEFENSIVE RAMPART — FRENCA]

  ?[TIME: 05:15 LOCAL]

  ?[STATUS: DEFENSIVE LINE COLLAPSE — TERMINAL PHASE]

  Obscurity still dominated the western horizon, accompanied by a glacial atmosphere that prophesied the end. Only a few hours sequestered the echelons of Frenca from the dawn, yet an equal interval separated them from annihilation. Upon the ramparts, chaos held hegemony. Demoralized and depleted, they had endured a night within a furnace of incineration, attempting to shield what was already indefensible.

  ?On the opposite flank, the Nax-Geot machinery remained pristine. They had sacrificed zero tanks, zero echelons; they had permitted the systematic salvos of the PaH 2000 to execute their clinical labor from a distance, reducing Frenca’s defense to ash.

  [SUBJECT: 45 UNITS PaH 2000: 3 PROJECTILES IN 9 SECONDS]

  [OBJECTIVE: SECONDARY DEFENSIVE RAMPART — 64% ATTRITION]

  Atop the platform of the Second Wall, Colonel De Gori stood with constricted teeth. The luminescence of the fires consuming his divisions reflected within his haunted optics and upon the Grade G insignia anchored to his sternum.

  ?“Colonel,” whispered one of the officers, approaching with weighted tread. “There remains zero recourse. Every unit attempting a forward deployment is incinerated before establishing a perimeter.”

  ?De Gori offered no rebuttal. His silence was an internal shriek of despair.

  ?“Only one resolution remains, sir,” another officer spoke, his resonance as frigid as expiration. “You must evacuate. Fugitive extraction before the wall undergoes terminal collapse.”

  ?“What delirium is this, fool?!” De Gori erupted, pivoting with a sudden ferocity. “Do I appear as one of those who abdicate their nationhood and their echelons in their terminal seconds?”

  ?“Then what is your proposition?!” the officer countered with equal intensity. “Communication is deceased. Reinforcements are a myth. Nax-Geot is cauterizing us alive!”

  ?De Gori recoiled, his respiration decelerating into the gasp of a man who has touched the nadir of the abyss. But abruptly, a high-frequency shout emanated from the observation spires:

  ?“The Nax-Geot host has ceased fire!”

  ?De Gori’s optics ignited. A manic smirk grazed his lips, as if he had just subverted death itself.

  ?“Do you perceive it, fool? This is our window! They must be replenishing their munition reserves.” He pivoted toward the troops with a resonance that thundered over the debris: “Prime every weapon! We shall initiate the assault now that their artillery has subsided! Accelerate!”

  But his mandate was stifled by a sequence of successive detonations that originated not from the vanguard, but from the twin clandestine flanks of the rampart. The terrain shuddered as if the valves of the abyss were rupturing open.

  ?“What is the nature of this ignition?!” the officer bellowed.

  ?“They have perforated the wall!” shrieked a soldier descending the stairs in a frantic sprint, his visage eclipsed by pulverized masonry. “They have neutralized our concealed nodes. Their armor is hemorrhaging into the city interior!”

  ?De Gori calcified. The world in his perimeter decelerated into stasis.

  ?“Mathematically impossible...” he murmured, his stare petrified toward the plumes of dust ascending from the rear echelons. “How were they detected? How did they identify our most cryptic conduits?”

  While the officer corps was paralyzed in chaos upon the exposed arteries of the wall, the echelons of Frenca attempted a futile friction against the 3-TIGER chassis. But their munitions deflected off the angled plating, rendering their armaments obsolete. As a cluster of soldiers attempted to engineer an ambush with kinetic mines mid-thoroughfare, a single 3-TIGER materialized like an obsidian leviathan, polarizing every combatant with dread.

  ?“Don’t...” the soldier’s resonance failed to emerge from the terror, while his optics reflected the bore of the main cannon anchored upon him. In a microsecond, he erupted into a shriek. “Evacuate! Everyone!”

  ?But the window had expired. The tank’s projectile dismantled them as they took their terminal, terrified strides.

  [OBJECTIVE: FRENCA ECHELONS IN TRENCHES — 84 KIA AND ASCENDING]

  Deeper within the perimeter, the 3-TIGER units were lacerating every residual node of resistance. Frenca’s archaic 90mm caliber tanks faced the black monstrosities of Nax-Geot. At one coordinate, two Frenca tanks anchored their bores upon a solitary 3-TIGER; a singular haptic engagement from within the 3-TIGER’s cockpit sufficed for the autonomous tracking missiles to neutralize them. But the onslaught persisted; additional missiles launched like raptors, slicing the atmosphere and descending with surgical trajectories upon the soldiers sprinting through the bunkers.

  [OBJECTIVE: FRENCA FORCES — 197 KIA AND ASCENDING / 34 ARMORED CHASSIS NEUTRALIZED]

  Concurrently, atop the rampart where De Gori remained anchored, the tension had reached a terminal frequency. Every optic was fixated upon a scout whose hands vibrated with such intensity that his apparatus rattled against his metallic helm. He was not merely terrified; he was paralyzed by a horror that defied articulation.

  ?“What did you perceive?! Articulate!” one of the officers bellowed, shaking the soldier with violence, yet the man remained petrified—a statue of flesh scrutinizing the void of expiration.

  ?De Gori seized the optics with a feral motion and focused them toward the horizon, where the dust of the detonations was beginning to subside. The lenses synchronized upon a monstrous silhouette: a machine so gargantuan it appeared to be pulverizing the very tectonic plates beneath its transit.

  ?“That... that is... Gustav,” De Gory whispered. His resonance surrendered every vestige of authority, devolving into a wretched exhale.

  ?The nomenclature of that infamous engine of siege was sufficient to vitrify the blood of every man upon the wall. Gustav was not utilized to breach ramparts; Gustav was utilized to amputate cities from the map. In that microsecond, the optics slipped from De Gori’s grasp, colliding with the reinforced concrete. The Colonel’s equilibrium fractured; his anatomy was surrendering beneath the gravitational mass of defeat.

  ?Before he collapsed, one of the officers gripped his shoulders with force. Yet, it was not a gesture of succor; it was a constriction of dominance. The officer approximated his mouth to De Gori’s ear, his resonance cold, lucid, and entirely stripped of allegiance.

  ?“And now, Colonel?” the officer whispered amidst the surrounding chaos. “How do you calculate... do you desire to expire as a hero atop the debris, or do you crave a secondary contingency?”

  ?De Gori achieved cognition. It was not merely Gustav that was approaching. It was the terminality of an epoch.

  [LOCATION: HEAVY ARTILLERY EMBANKMENTS — FRONTAL PERIMETER]

  ?[TIME: 05:35 LOCAL]

  While the echelons of Frenca remained paralyzed before the horror looming upon the horizon, on the opposite flank of the theater, the steel leviathan Gustav was primed for the terminal impact. General Blais stood encircled by his staff: a cadre of officers encased in obsidian greatcoats, resembling a pack of wolves scrutinizing their hemorrhaging prey. Blais observed the gargantuan bore of Gustav with an almost fanatical adoration. It was a titan of iron, anchored upon specialized rails and shielded by hundreds of combatants.

  [SUBJECT: GUSTAV — CALIBER: 120cm]

  “General Blais!” a soldier shouted, navigating through the mire toward his position. “The 3-TIGER chassis have already perforated the internal perimeter!”

  ?“And what do these represent?” Blais queried, indicating the diagnostics in the soldier’s grasp.

  ?The soldier extended them, elucidating the folios one by one.

  ?“These are the consumption diagnostics for Gustav. Regardless, they are a nightmare to scrutinize—a logistical catastrophe. Our combustible reserves have plummeted by 23%, yet conversely, it grants us a superior temporal advantage and clinical efficiency.”

  ?“Such are the dividends and the deficits of this beast...”

  ?Before Blais could terminate his articulation, another shriek emanated from the artillery platform:

  ?“Gustav is calibrated! Coordinates are locked. We await your mandate, General!”

  ?Blais pivoted his gaze toward the Secondary Defensive Rampart. His smirk was sub-zero, devoid of a solitary vestige of mercy. He elevated his hand and transmitted the mandate that would invert the fate of the conflict:

  ?“Let us transform the night into day. FIRE!”

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  ?The terrain shuddered as if the tectonic plates were being cleaved in two. The resonance of the ignition was so deafening that the rupture of silence manifested as a physical trauma against the sternum of every soldier. The gargantuan projectile lacerated the firmament and, within seconds, impacted the Second Wall.

  [OBJECTIVE: SECONDARY DEFENSIVE RAMPART — DISTANCE: 64KM — 98% ATTRITION]

  The detonation was apocalyptic. A column of incineration and pulverized masonry ascended toward the heavens, illuminating the nocturnal void with a blinding glare. Within that infernal brilliance, the Grade B insignia ignited upon Blais’s chest, reflecting off the visages of his echelons as they witnessed the collapse of a nation.

  ?As the luminescence of the explosion began to subside, a frail solar ray initiated its manifestation upon the horizon. Blais pivoted toward one of his officers, recalibrating his gloves.

  ?“Notify the Chancellor: The trajectory toward Pisa is unobstructed. We shall consume our morning rations in the capital today.”

  [DATE: 01. CYCLE 12]

  [LOCATION: RIDGES OVERLOOKING BYG SEABOARD — FAR SOUTH]

  ?[TIME: 06:15 LOCAL]

  ?[STATUS: ALLIED DESCENT INTO THE NEBULA]

  The initial solar rays were striking the crests of the ridges overlooking Byg, yet the luminescence brought zero clarity. A dense, ivory nebula had extended like a terminal shroud, obliterating the frontier between the terrain and the deep. The Allied host, commanded by Ademi, had executed a critical resolution: abandoning the M.H 142 heavy artillery to acquire velocity. The adversary was there, upon the shoreline, manifesting as obsidian nodes maneuvering within the haze.

  ?“General, the nebula has rendered the calibration of their precise coordinates mathematically impossible. It appears their echelons have diminished with suspicious velocity,” reported one of the Colonels, cleansing his optics. “I propose we await the arrival of the M.H 142 units. Without fire support, the descent is pure hazard.”

  ?“Temporal luxury is non-existent, Colonel. If we remain in stasis, they will evaporate into the sea and we shall forfeit our terminal opportunity,” Ademi countered, his optics attempting to lacerate the ivory veil. “Command the M.S 4 chassis to breach the nebula. The infantry is to trail them in assault formation.”

  [SUBJECT: M.S 4 CHASSIS — SEvP4.1 PLATING / CALIBER: 129mm]

  [ALLIED INFANTRY — ARMAMENT: M4A111 LIGHT AUTOMATICS / RECOIL-STABILIZATION SYNC]

  [OBJECTIVE: NAX-GEOT FORCES — ENUMERATION: INDETERMINATE]

  The mandate was executed. The echelons, depleted by an entire nocturnal cycle of incessant marching, initiated their descent down the incline. Their M4A111 firearms weighed heavily upon their fractured shoulders, yet the hallucination of a swift victory maintained their kinetic momentum. They no longer scrutinized their flanks; their optics were fixated solely upon those obsidian nodes on the shore that appeared to be “shrinking.”

  As they approximated the maritime frontier, the aquatic chill and the scent of brine induced a deceptive stasis of tranquility. Thousands of echelons were descending from every vector of the ridge like a human torrent, projecting the illusion of a total encirclement. The nocturnal tension was evaporating, yielding to the adrenaline of the predator closing in on its prey.

  ?But the silence was rapidly dismantled. The scent of salt was abruptly suffocated by the heavy miasma of diesel and carbon. A frigid anxiety lacerated the vanguard of the Allies. Ademi calcified. The human mass he had previously monitored upon the shore had evaporated.

  ?The echelons decelerated their pace, digits vibrating over the triggers of their M4A111 units. A jagged metallic resonance pierced the dawn before colonizing the nebula once more. Atop the ridge, Ademi gripped his optics with a constriction that turned his knuckles to ivory.

  ?From the white shroud, a singular standard emerged first: the inverted crimson triangle with the obsidian eagle at its center. It was a puncture of gore amidst the void. The M.S 4 chassis ceased movement instantaneously, engineering a kinetic blockage within the infantry strata advancing from the rear.

  ?“What is the nature of this stasis? Why have they halted?” one of the colonels queried, his anxiety hemorrhaging into his resonance.

  ?Ademi elevated his hand for silence, immobile. Before them, the nebula was ascending—not propelled by the gale, but by the thermal exhaustion of heavy engines emerging from the depths.

  ?“It is... the Nax-Geot Naval Flotilla,” a colonel whispered, his resonance stifled by terror.

  ?What Ademi had perceived as the shoreline manifested as the ultimate snare of the conflict. Scores of dreadnoughts had assumed their coordinates, with gargantuan naval bores rotating with lethal precision toward the ridge where 250,000 Allied echelons were compressed.

  [SUBJECT: 100 UNITS U-BOOT 2002 — NAVAL CALIBER: 250mm HEAVY]

  [OBJECTIVE: ALLIED FORCES — 250,000 COMBATANTS]

  “How was I so cognitively deficient...” Ademi murmured. “The civilians... they were not a shield for their extraction. They were the bait for our descent.”

  ?“General!” a colonel shrieked from the lower ranks. “We are hermetically sealed! Every forward stride is a trajectory toward annihilation! What is our resolution?!”

  Adem looked down. The civilians had vanished into the mist, and the Nax-Geot forces he had been pursuing were nothing more than ghosts—spectral decoys now repositioning to snap the iron trap shut.

  ?“It cannot end like this,” he whispered, before forcing himself back to reality. “Order the tanks to retreat immediately! Infantry, fall back at a dead run!”

  ?“It’s impossible, General!” the colonel retorted, pointing to the chaotic bottleneck behind them. “We have 250,000 troops crammed into this narrow corridor. The tanks cannot climb this incline with the infantry obstructing their path!”

  ?“And what do you suggest?!” Adem roared, his face burning with a volatile mix of rage and despair.

  ?“Raise the white flag, sir,” the colonel said in a low, hollow voice, refusing to meet his eyes.

  ?Adem froze, his gaze sharpening into a blade of icy hatred.

  ?“What are you saying? Are you suggesting we desert? That we surrender without firing a single round?”

  ?“If we don’t, we all die, General!” the colonel finally snapped. “Think of the soldiers’ lives for once, not just your rank and your honor! Those naval cannons will turn this hill into a mass grave in five minutes!”

  ?As Adem pierced the colonel with a venomous glare, another scream from the rear shattered the argument.

  ?“Look!” an officer cried out, pointing toward the hilltops they had just abandoned. “Nax-Geot artillery! They’ve flanked us from behind!”

  [SUBJECT: 30 UNITS PaH 2000 — DISTANCE: 25KM]

  Adem sank slowly, his knees hitting the cold mud. His hopes flickered out like a candle in a gale.

  ?“So... that’s where they were hiding,” he murmured, his voice broken and hollow. “They’ve come up behind us. We’re dead men.”

  Chaos descended instantly. The Allied army, pinned between the naval cannons in front and the PaH 2000 artillery behind, began a disjointed, frantic retreat. Soldiers discarded their M4A111 rifles and ammunition packs, trampling over one another in a desperate gamble to find an exit that did not exist. Meanwhile, on the shore, Nax-Geot forces were evacuating civilians with a methodical silence, funneling them out of the kill zone unnoticed by Adem’s bewildered colonels.

  ?From a secure distance, inside an armored command vehicle, Stancer and Alfo observed the spectacle. Stancer held a cigarette, savoring the first rays of sunlight as if he were at a picnic rather than the epicenter of a potential massacre.

  ?“General,” the liaison officer reported, “General Zeta’s tanks have mobilized to seal the bottleneck at the hill’s crest. The PaH 2000 batteries are at full combat readiness. If the Allies attempt to break the rear encirclement, they will be annihilated.”

  ?“Excellent,” Stancer said, taking a long drag and exhaling a plume of heavy smoke. “Tell Zeta to hold until the fleet completes its maneuver. I don’t want to risk a single tank. Let’s just plant the seed of terror in their marrow for now. No need to waste ammunition when they are busy destroying themselves.”

  ?“And do not forget,” Alfo intervened, his voice cold and devoid of emotion, “notify General Kaiser Denis to commence his operation. The time is now.”

  ?Stancer let out a low chuckle, eyeing Alfo with a newfound sliver of respect.

  ?“Oh... I like you, kid. That’s what I value in an army: Efficiency. Not like Blais, who mocked me saying I’d need Avasha to finish the job. Nonsense.”

  [LOCATION: NAX-GEOT NAVAL FLEET — BAY OF BYG]

  [TIME: 06:55 LOCAL]

  On the bridge of the flagship, the order had just been validated. General Kaiser Denis, clad in his deep navy-blue uniform with gold braiding, surveyed the desperate huddle of Allied forces on the hill through his binoculars. As he turned, the morning light caught the icy glint of the Grade S insignia on his chest.

  ?“General,” an officer reported with a rigid stance, “all one hundred U-boot 2002 units are positioned at the precise coordinates. Stancer’s order for open fire is confirmed. The coastal zone is clear of civilians.”

  ?“Then... all that remains is to start the fishing,” Denis replied with a cynical smirk, before stepping into the command cabin.

  ?In the next heartbeat, hell was unleashed upon Byg. Heavy naval shells tore through the mist with a supersonic shriek, striking the M.S 4 tanks with surgical precision. Allied armor crumbled under the sheer kinetic force of the U-boot 2002 heavy caliber, erupting into spheres of fire and molten iron. The roar was so titanic it numbed the soldiers’ ears, leaving them in a silent world, alone with the horror of what they were witnessing.

  [OBJECTIVE: ALLIED FORCES — KIA 126 INCREASING / M.S 4 TANKS — KIA 21 INCREASING]

  Adem’s army was being shoved like a pack of rats in a burning cage. Behind them, the PaH 2000 batteries were churning the earth into a wall of fire and mud; ahead, Denis’s fleet was “roasting” them alive with unrelenting volleys. The tanks, wedged immobile among the panicked infantry, didn’t even have the chance to maneuver.

  ?At the summit of the hill, Adem was pounding the mud with his fists, caught in a powerless rage bordering on madness. His colonels were desperately trying to regain control and bring their shattered general back to reality.

  ?“General, snap out of it! Now!” one of the colonels screamed, shaking him by the shoulders. “Our tanks’ SEvP4.1 technical shielding cannot withstand this caliber! This isn’t a battle—it’s a slaughterhouse! We must surrender now, before we are turned to dust!”

  [OBJECTIVE: ALLIED FORCES — KIA 237 INCREASING]

  Inside the command cabin of the flagship, the thundering strikes outside were reduced to a rhythmic hum. Denis sat motionless in his chair, his eyes reflecting the emerald glow of the tactical monitors. He finally broke the monotonous silence as he watched the Allies scrambling for an exit from the inferno.

  ?“Command Sector 3 to rotate their batteries 3 degrees southwest,” Denis directed the radio operator stationed nearby. “And Sector 8 is to shift fire 2.3 degrees higher up the slope. Close every possible exit.”

  ?The soldier immediately initiated the transmission.

  ?“Copy, Sector 3: Adjust artillery 3 degrees southwest,” he stated, before rapidly switching frequencies. “Copy, Sector 8: Adjust artillery 2.3 degrees vertically up the ridge.”

  ?Outside, the order was executed in seconds, transforming the inferno into a fiery prison. The 250mm shells shrieked over the heads of soldiers coated in a mixture of mud and blood.

  [OBJECTIVE: ALLIED FORCES — KIA 397 INCREASING]

  Meanwhile, at the summit of the hill, surrounded by his colonels and officers, Adem began to breathe with a forced regularity, though his eyes remained frozen on the slaughter below. The realization struck him like a physical blow: his ego, his refusal to retreat, had just sentenced thousands to death. If he did not raise the white flag in the next few seconds, 250,000 lives would be erased from the history of Byg forever.

  [DATE: 01. CYCLE 12]

  [LOCATION: OPERATIONAL BASE — VARNA, COMMAND SECTOR]

  [TIME: 22:45 LOCAL]

  [STATUS: EXTRA-PROTOCOL ANALYSIS]

  As the blood-soaked day in Byg surrendered to the night, Varna was submerged in a heavy, frigid slumber. Only a solitary light flickered on the second floor of the command building. Meanwhile, inside the soldiers’ quarters, Erten was wrestling with his equations, the only accompaniment being the heavy snoring of the soldiers in the barracks.

  ?“Hey, ‘Scientist’! Can you drop those papers now?” muttered a soldier from the bunk below, his voice oscillating between irritation and exhaustion.

  ?“I’m at a critical threshold of the derivation,” Erten shot back, his eyes never wavering from the chaotic notations. “I can’t stop precisely now, just as the variables are aligning.”

  ?“I couldn’t care less, kid. If you don’t kill those lights...” The soldier trailed off as he caught sight of Erten’s lost yet persistent stare. “Fine. Go outside the base and finish them there. Come back when you’re done. Understood?”

  ?Erten sighed, gathered the sheets with the care of a treasure-seeker, and threw a coat over his shoulders. The nocturnal cold of Varna was merciless, but his mind was too ignited to perceive it. He took a seat on the same stone bench beneath the command building and resumed his battle with the numbers.

  ?Unbeknownst to him, the eyes of the command were upon him. Goto stood on the balcony with a cup of coffee in hand, observing the movement of Erten’s pencil with a cold curiosity.

  ?“You’re missing a constant in that equation,” Goto spoke suddenly, shattering the silence of the night.

  ?Erten snapped his head up, stunned. He hadn’t sensed the presence.

  ?“Forgive me, General! I didn’t realize... I’ll leave immediately so as not to disturb you,” he said, preparing to gather his tools.

  ?“No, stay there. I’m coming down,” Goto replied, draining his cup in a single swallow.

  ?A few seconds later, Goto appeared at the entrance of the building. He was dressed simply, a jacket thrown over his sleepwear—a sight that fractured his rigid, official image. He sat beside Erten, after brushing the snow from the bench.

  ?“So, General... what were you saying from up there?” Erten asked, adjusting the papers with a hand that trembled slightly from the cold.

  ?“’General’?” Goto let out a soft chuckle—a rare sound. “You sound just like Ette. He only calls me that to mock me. You can just call me Goto. I am the son of General Kenzi Goreta.”

  ?Erten froze. The name Goreta carried more weight than all his equations combined.

  ?“That’s... unbelievable,” he murmured. “What is it like, being the successor to one of the Five Masters of the Blitzkrieg?”

  ?“Now you’re proving you really are like Ette. He never stops talking about that part,” Goto replied, his tone turning serious. “It’s a living discipline, Erten. A standard that is never fully reached. But I didn’t come here to talk about my father. I came to tell you that your equation has a calculation error... you’re missing a piece.”

  ?Erten spread the sheets across his knees, flipping through them rapidly until he stopped at the critical page. There, in the dead center of the equation, was a missing variable that had stalled the entire system.

  ?“It’s true... it’s the same part I could never solve back in the barn,” Erten whispered, almost to himself. He looked up at Goto, astonished. “I didn’t know you possessed knowledge of frequency physics, Goto.”

  ?“Not me. My brother,” Goto replied, his voice losing its usual edge. “I learned some of the fundamentals from him. Just enough not to fall behind.”

  ?“I bet he must be the real genius of the Goreta family,” Erten threw in a joke, attempting to decompress the atmosphere.

  ?“He was the most talented engineer you could ever hope to see,” Goto’s voice dropped to a heavy whisper.

  ?Erten realized immediately that he had touched an open wound. He slowly folded the papers and tucked them inside his jacket, moving with caution.

  ?“’Was’?” he asked briefly.

  ?“Yes. Was. And it is my fault he is no longer here,” Goto answered. The silence that followed was colder than the snow falling upon them. But, with a quick shake of his head, he brushed the thought aside. “Regardless, that belongs to the past. The future belongs to those who dare, while the present... the present is our battlefield.”

  ?“I understand exactly what you mean,” Erten added with a melancholic smile. “Take me as an example. I decided to stand against Halter on the podium and forgot the danger for a moment of idealism. Now I’m here, and that crazy Colonel is forcing me to become a killer.”

  ?Goto could no longer maintain his gravity. A genuine laugh broke from him, making Erten laugh as well, despite the circumstances.

  “What else has she done to you?” Goto asked, still grinning.

  ?“I have to admit, though... she has a unique taste in sweets,” Erten added.

  ?Goto’s smile froze instantly. He turned his gaze toward Erten, stunned, as if he had just seen a ghost.

  ?“Wait a second... Avasha Halter shared her sweets with someone else? With you?”

  ?It was Erten’s turn to be blindsided.

  ?“So... she really is Chancellor Halter’s daughter?”

  ?Goto covered his face with his hand, laughing again, this time with sheer disbelief at what he was hearing. It was a scenario no intelligence report could have ever predicted. He stood up, adjusting his jacket over his sleepwear.

  ?“Well then, Erten. This conversation was a true escape from reality,” Goto said, extending a hand to help him up. “Now, get inside. We can’t afford a sick soldier just as the project is receiving its final coordinates.”

  ?Erten stood up, straightening himself into a formal “attention” as regulations required, but his eyes still held the spark of one last joke.

  [LOCATION: STRATEGY ROOM — VARNA]

  [TIME: 23:15 LOCAL]

  While outside, under the faint light of the falling snow, an unusual friendship was being forged, inside the briefing room the atmosphere was suffocating. Goreta and Aista were buried under a mountain of documents, tactical reports, and coordinate maps, while Avasha—completely detached from the administrative reality—was trying on her hats in front of a small mirror, searching for the one that fit her best.

  ?“I’m bored,” Avasha declared with a sigh that seemed to vacuum all the oxygen out of the room.

  ?“If you’re bored, imagine our situation, Colonel,” Aista shot back without looking up from the reports, her voice trembling from chronic exhaustion.

  ?Avasha tossed her hats aside with indifference, slumped into her chair, and propped her feet up on the table covered in maps. This gesture caused Goreta to snap his head up, his eyes flashing with irritation.

  ?“Colonel, I would ask you to show a bit more respect,” Goreta said, struggling to maintain his composure.

  Avasha rolled her eyes with irony and retracted her feet with a slow, defiant motion. She remained silent for several seconds—just long enough for them to think they could return to work—before erupting again in a loud tone:

  ?“Have I told you how I modified my sniper rifle, the ‘Cherry Sakuna’?”

  ?“You’ve told us at least thirty times during this shift alone,” Aista replied, gripping her pencil so hard the lead snapped against the paper.

  ?In that instant, Avasha slammed her elbow onto the table with a force that caused Goreta’s pen to skid, leaving a jagged black streak across the report he was just finalizing.

  ?“Damn it!” she burst out, ignoring Goreta’s murderous glare. “We need to find something to do, otherwise we’ll die of boredom before the SRR even gets a chance to kill us!”

  ?“You’re right, Colonel, something must be done,” Goreta shot back, sliding several folders toward her. “How about you fill out these fuel consumption reports?”

  ?Avasha looked at them from a distance, her eyes visibly struggling to even acknowledge their existence. A cynical smirk played at the corner of her lips as she turned her gaze back to Goreta.

  ?“General, you forget that I am a Grade S; I don’t deal with filthy paperwork,” Avasha countered with dripping irony. “Besides, I already sent my reports to Central Command regarding the last assault I led.”

  “Yes, you’re right, but there’s a catch. Central Command didn’t understand a single word of those reports because the handwriting was... a total scrawl,” Goreta said with a calmness that masked his vanishing patience.

  ?“It’s not my fault they don’t know how to read. I even used numbers—I’m surprised they couldn’t grasp the consumption of 3.5 tons of diesel or the expenditure of 550 rockets,” Avasha retorted with irritating composure as she slowly walked away. “Anyway, I’m going to see if I can find something sweet to eat; this night is proving to be far too long.”

  ?As Goreta watched her leave with total indifference, he muttered to himself:

  ?“Well, maybe Stancer has a point when he complains that Avasha is a logistical nightmare.”

  ?Perhaps the night was long for Avasha, but for Goreta and Aista, this late hour was becoming a test of endurance more difficult than any frontline battle.