The Balkan states – Europe. November 20th, 2040.

  The Chinese push into the Bismarck Sea had not been coincidence. Nor had the sudden escalation along the Line of Control between India and Pakistan, nor the coordinated surge of Iranian proxy aggression in the Gulf. Each move was deliberate — you could call them feints, or distractions, designed to overload the Allied command structure and fracture their response tempo. Or you could call them for what they really were, coordination.

  They were not the main event for this phase, however.

  The main event came at 03:12 hours, local time — while warships fought for control of the Bismarck Sea and a Peoples Liberation Army push into Papua New Guinea, likely an attempt to reach Port Moresby and surround Australia and New Zealand, cutting off supply lines. In near-silent coordination, Russian special operations units swept across the borders of Belarus, Kaliningrad and Russia, striking hard into Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. They moved fast, stealthily with such tightly choreographed actions, that it would be hours before anyone in Brussels or Berlin fully grasped what had happened.

  That morning’s targets for the special forces teams were not tanks or air defence systems. They were television stations, radio relays, internet backbone hubs, and ground-based satellite links — the arteries of public knowledge. In Riga, Vilnius, and Tallinn, teams from GRU Unit 29155 and the Russian Special Forces Directorate slipped through back alleys and side roads in modified GAZ Tigr-M2 vehicles, each fitted with jamming suites and dismounted EW teams. What they couldn’t sever with explosives, their cyberwarfare counterparts neutralised remotely — launching zero-day exploits and malware payloads from platforms inside Belarus and Kaliningrad to paralyse civilian communications networks and media platforms across the Baltics.

  Simultaneously, Spetsnaz Alpha teams launched direct-action assaults on key infrastructure nodes — civilian airports, military airfields, and coastal defence radar stations.

  At Lielvārde Air Base, south of Riga, Russian assault teams disguised in pristine white covered Latvian uniforms breached the outer wire using silenced AK-19s and suppressed pistols. The base, lightly staffed due to the coming winter, forward deployments and the shift change window, fell within twenty minutes. The control tower was taken intact. Ground crews were executed in the dark. Only a few encrypted distress signals made it out.

  Meanwhile, at Riga International Airport, a separate team assaulted the terminal and control tower simultaneously. An early morning snow storm had perfectly masked their approach. Pantsir-SM air defence systems mounted on KamAZ 6560M trucks were rolled off flatbeds by 03:35 to secure the perimeter, while teams deployed mobile jammers and blocked all outgoing transmissions. Local airport security — undertrained and under-armed — were overwhelmed in under five minutes.

  At 03:42, civilian air traffic control reported the sudden disappearance of fifteen aircraft that had been transmitting standard ICAO international IFF codes, off the coast. By that stage the control tower was in Russian hands and the code signal sent.

  Out of the early morning darkness came An-124M3 Condor heavy transports and Il-276 assault transports, flying low out of international airspace over the Baltic Sea, under the cover of ECM support from Tu-214R reconnaissance aircraft.

  Then one after another, they began to land. The hulking aircraft slammed onto the runways of Riga, Kaunas, Siauliai, and Tallinn, disgorging hundreds of VDV airborne infantry, BPM-99M infantry fighting vehicles, Lotos 2S42 self-propelled mortars, and light Tigr-M assault recon vehicles. Within minutes, they had fanned out across the airfields and into key junctions in the cities beyond.

  At the Port of Riga, Russian Ropucha-class landing ships, escorted by Steregushchiy-class corvettes, were already offloading heavier units: T-90M tanks, BMP-4 IFVs, BTR-90 APCs Tor-M2 air defence units, self-propelled howitzers and mobile rocket artillery systems, under the cover of precision drone swarms launched from offshore tenders.

  By dawn, using the weather and well drilled tactics, developed from years of rebuilding and semi isolation, Russian forces held the three capitals, and the Baltic states disappeared from Nato servers.

  In Tallinn, an Estonian Home Guard unit managed to fight back, briefly reclaiming control of a local communications hub and broadcasting a five-second emergency signal before being overrun. In Vilnius, the Lithuanian Rapid Response Battalion was ambushed en route to reinforce the airport, and a dozen NATO personnel embedded there were either killed or captured. Within minutes of Russian forces landing, massed armour brigades, which had formed up along the Russian and Belarus borders under the guise of training exercises, suddenly turned east and raced headlong through the countryside.

  Their task was to seep aside any serious resistance and link up with forces already holding key strategic points. A true winter assault perfectly coordinated that made the battle of the bulge look like child’s play.

  By the first light of morning specially designed armoured cars with large speakers mounted to the roof, were circling through civilian streets and apartment blocks in all major cities and towns, the same message was repeated over and over.

  “Stay in your homes, the city is in lockdown! Stay in your homes or you will be fired upon.”

  Children just waking up for school clung to their parents in fear. Many looked out windows, several wished they hadn’t. The disembodied voice was proven deadly accurate on many occasions. Several civilians, either hadn’t heard the broadcast, or ignored it completely and left their homes. They would never return. Their bodies lay in the streets for days, the Russian soldiers having been ordered to leave them as warnings.

  The world would not learn the full extent of what had happened for another six hours. By then, more regular forces were streaming across the border, and the Baltic States were cut off — their governments fragmented, their airspace contested, their people waking into a new kind of darkness.

  And NATO, already reeling from the war in the Middle East, would now face the thing it had feared most since the Cold War ended.

  A war in Europe.

  ***

  Nato Headquarters, Brussels – Belgium. November 20th, 2040. 07.00LT

  General Pierre Montcrieff, Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), had been awoken in the early hours by conflicting reports, partial satellite imagery, and a brief, urgent call from the Lithuanian Defence Minister that had cut off mid-sentence.

  The Frenchman had rushed to the NATO Situation Room in a rumpled uniform and an unshaven jaw, the lines on his face etched deeper with every passing minute. He hadn’t slept properly in days. No one had. The Russian training manoeuvres were not unusual, but the timing could have been better. No one had expected this.

  The command centre — buried deep beneath NATO HQ — was a hive of tension. Dozens of officers and analysts from across the NATO Alliance were clustered around live feeds, chatter pouring from a dozen language channels at once. The central tactical display — a four-metre by ten metre digital screen, showing a map of eastern Europe — pulsed with red markers and blank zones. Too much silence. Too little confirmation.

  Montcrieff took a breath and barked, “What do we have?”

  A young Dutch intelligence officer turned from his console. “Sir, we’ve lost real-time feeds from Riga, Vilnius, and Tallinn. Communications are down across large parts of all three countries. Lielvārde Air Base is showing as ‘offline.’ Riga International too. Satellite imagery from two hours ago confirms multiple heavy-lift aircraft on the runways. Infrared signatures suggest rapid offloading — likely personnel and armour.”

  “Russian?” Montcrieff snapped.

  “Almost certainly, sir. We’re picking up transponder spoofing patterns consistent with Il-276s and An-124s. No response from Latvian air control. Civilian air traffic was diverted or blocked starting at 03:30 local time.”

  A German officer cut in. “We're also seeing jammed military bands and bursts of encrypted traffic near the Kaliningrad corridor. Electronic warfare activity suggests mobile jamming units are active across all three states.”

  Montcrieff turned to his deputy, British Air Vice Marshal Sophie Keating. “And NATO QRF? What’s our posture?”

  Keating’s eyes were bloodshot, her voice clipped. “The Very High Readiness Joint Task Force is forward-positioned in Poland, but they've been grounded until we get clarity on the air picture. AWACS out of Geilenkirchen attempted a sweep two hours ago — was painted by an S-500 battery west of Grodno. We pulled them back. Two battalion task groups are on ten-hour notice. Estonia’s requesting immediate reinforcement, but—”

  “But we don’t have an open corridor,” Montcrieff said grimly.

  A Norwegian naval officer raised a hand. “Russian patrols now confirmed east of Gotland and south of Saaremaa. Steregushchiy-class corvettes, at least one Gorshkov-class frigate forward. Swedish sonar pinged Kilo-class subs pushing south from the Gulf of Finland.”

  Montcrieff leaned in. “We need eyes. What’s flying?”

  Keating replied, “We’ve tasked a flight of MQ-9Bs for standoff ISR — operating out of Swadhin and Microsmatic. Low risk, high endurance. And Estonian signals teams have launched a few short-range tactical UAVs — relay drones, mostly. They’re not having a great deal of luck though. Weather conditions aren’t permissive.”

  Montcrieff nodded. “Good. Quiet eyes in the sky, but nothing near the ground, Let’s hope it stays that way.”

  The picture on the main screen was bleak to say the least. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, all former Soviet, all small with even smaller populations and budgets. If the Russians were making a move, there was not much there to stop them. It made sense though, Montcrieff thought to himself. It opened up the Baltic and it put pressure on the Scandinavians, it was a win-win for the Russians.

  “Jesus,” Montcrieff muttered a moment later, the full realisation of what was playing out before his eyes fully sinking in. “They're sealing themselves in before we can even knock.”

  He turned back to the table. “What’s the political situation?”

  An aide from the civilian coordination team — a Belgian named Renaud — stepped in. “President Volodin has made no statement as yet. The Kremlin claims this is a ‘regional security operation’ in response to Baltic destabilisation. Russian state media is saying there has been a ‘pro-Russian coup’ in Riga. Disinformation is exploding across social networks — a flood of false flag narratives, deepfakes, and claims of internal unrest.”

  Montcrieff clenched his jaw. “And the Americans?”

  “They’re waking up now. Langley has requested immediate intel confirmation. The Joint Chiefs want live feeds. The President is en route to the White House Situation Room.”

  Montcrieff exhaled slowly. “Then we’re in the worst-case scenario.”

  He stepped up to the main console, staring at the blank spaces on the map where three sovereign capitals should have been alive with data.

  “This is not like them at all, not like Ukraine. They didn’t just test us,” he said. “They bypassed us completely. Full-spectrum seizure, executed under our noses, while our forces were bleeding in the Middle East.”

  He looked around the room. Every head was watching him now.

  “Sound the alert to NATO Rapid Forces North. Move the U.S. 173rd Airborne into forward staging in Rzeszów. I want Wedgetails in the sky over Poland and I want ISR drones launched from the Baltics’ southern edge. Activate Article Four consultations immediately.”

  Keating blinked. “And Article Five?”

  Montcrieff didn’t answer right away. He just stared at the frozen feed from Riga, his face hollow.

  Then, softly, “God help us… not yet.”

  A new voice broke in. “General, if I may,” said a Swedish Air Force liaison officer. “We have two squadrons of JAS 39E Gripens on ready alert at Visby. They’re fast enough for low-level overflights, and survivable enough to get themselves out of danger.”

  “That’s a good point,” Montcrieff replied, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “Keating — get on the phone. I want those Gripens doing low-level passes across suspected enemy routes of advance. No provocations, just a sneak peek.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  And with that, the room began to move again — a war machine slowly grinding to life.

  ***

  Russia–Ukraine Border – Eastern Europe. November 20th, 2040. 05:30LT

  The Russians had been preparing for this moment for over ten years — ever since they had been dragged to the peace table, humiliated, and forced to swallow an agreement they neither respected nor intended to honour.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Their invasion of Ukraine in the early 2020s had been reckless. Ill-planned. A war of ego rather than strategy — launched with decaying equipment, obsolete doctrine, and a leader more deluded than decisive. They had bled for that mistake. And they had remembered.

  But this time was different.

  Gone was the withered strongman and his circus of oligarchs. In his place sat a new regime, leaner, colder, and more focused. President Alexei Vasilyevich Volodin was not interested in nostalgia. He was interested in legacy. A historian by training and a soldier by temperament, Volodin saw himself not as the next Putin — but as the next Peter the Great.

  Since his turbulent rise to power — following the "Security Reset" purges of 2028 — Volodin had reshaped the Kremlin from within. Corruption was strangled, not coddled. The power ministries were streamlined. Cronies were replaced by loyal technocrats and battle-tested generals. The military-industrial complex was rebuilt from the inside out.

  No more fantasy prototypes or budget-sapping moonshots. Volodin’s Russia st6opped trying to keep up with the latest fads and only fielded time-tested platforms that worked, refined for modern war: Su-57Ms, upgraded T-90M3s, BMPTs, Iskander-ERs, and S-550 air defences. Ground forces drilled relentlessly. Cyber commands became autonomous branches. Naval patrols returned to blue waters.

  And on the morning of November 20th, the world saw what that rebuild had created.

  The assault began as it had in the Baltics - not with thunder, but with silence.

  At 03:00, Russian cyberwarfare teams severed Ukrainian satellite links and corrupted civilian communications networks. Within minutes, entire battalions lost contact. Air defence grids showed false positives — then went dark. Power stations along the Dnieper flickered and died. Then the Spetsnaz moved — having crossed over the DMZ disguised as civilian workers several hours before — infiltrating radar stations, jamming airbase communications, sabotaging fibre lines and rail hubs.

  Then, just before dawn, in an almost exact mirror of what was playing out up north, the armoured brigades rolled.

  T-90M3s and BMP-3Ds crossed into Ukraine. They poured over the Belarussian border, crashing through the DMZ along the northern border and at Poltava and Dnipro in the south, coordinated columns, supported by waves of Ka-52M attack helicopters and drone-guided artillery. Iskander-Ms lit had paved the way, lighting up the countryside, while Su-34s and Yak-130s made low level passes over troop formations, bases and air defence installations, taken off line by the ground teams. In the skies above massed flights of Su-57s and Mig-35s duelled with Ukrainian F-16s and GripenEs . The defenders fought back valiantly — but they had been caught mid-realignment, and had still not fully recovered from the last war. The speed, scale and sheer ferocity of the attack stripped them of any possible cohesion.

  This wasn’t just another land grab. It wasn’t even about Ukraine.

  Ukraine, strategically, was a symbol. A wound that Volodin believed needed cauterising. His people wanted closure. His generals wanted momentum. But his true objective lay to the south — far beyond Kyiv and the Dnieper.

  Volodin’s war machine was not turning west. By dawn they controlled Ukraine from Kyiv in the north, to Odessa in the south. Belarus, long seen as a vassal state of the Kremlin, ceased to exist, absorbed into the reforming union. With Ukraine bereft of leadership and any hope of resistance, the machine turned it eyes to the south — toward the real objective, the Caspian, toward Iran, and ultimately toward a strategic land bridge to the Arabian Sea.

  For over a decade, Russia had been laying the groundwork for this moment, hand-in-hand with its new axis of partners.

  Iran had agreed to the plan in principle two years earlier — through backchannel military accords and long-term energy deals was enough to persuade the Leopard. The Iranian Republic Guard Corps was already coordinating transit corridors through Zahedan and Sistan-Baluchestan, opening the path to Pakistan.

  Pakistan, while hesitant on the surface, had proved persuadable. Bribes, debt relief, promises of energy security, and quiet pressure from Beijing had done their work well on the Cobra. Though Islamabad denied any involvement, transit approvals were quietly greenlit. Russian “civilian advisors” had begun arriving in Quetta, escorted by Iranian Quds Force liaisons.

  Tajikistan, still loyal to the Kremlin, had reopened its Soviet-era military tunnels into northern Afghanistan. In the days that followed, the aim became all too clear: to cut a corridor through Central Asia, across Iran, into Pakistan, and on to the Arabian Sea — bypassing the Western-aligned shipping chokepoints entirely.

  China watched silently from the east, its strategic objectives aligned but deliberately ambiguous. The Dragon was busy with its own plans, and cared little for what the bear was doing — but it would support. Technologically, diplomatically, and logistically. From the Karakoram Highway to the Khunjerab Pass, quiet flows of material and surveillance data would soon move south.

  Even North Korea had pledged to assist — The Jackal could not spare the troops, but offered artillery, engineers, and missile logistics via the Trans-Siberian corridor.

  This was more than a war. It was an alignment of purpose. A Eurasian axis pushing south and west, carving a new crescent of power from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean.

  Ukraine was the beginning — the opening act in a campaign designed to fracture NATO, threaten India, and create a new order from the ashes of a fractured West. For one terrified father, pulling his two young boys, into the basement of their home on the outskirts of Kyiv, he did not care about the geopolitics, memories too fresh from when he was their age. As the heavy rockets and artillery shells began to fall all around them, he only cared for survival, not even for himself, but for his sons.

  Sadly, for Ukraine it was too late, the United Nations was a shepherd without a flock and Nato was on the back foot. By the time the world realised the full extent of what was happening elsewhere, the columns would be already too far south to stop.

  ***

  NATO Headquarters, Brussels – Belgium. November 20th, 2040. 08:30LT

  The command centre — buried deep beneath NATO HQ — was still reeling from the early morning attacks on the Baltics. The atmosphere was electric with tension, a storm of radio chatter, satellite pings, and shouted confirmations across multiple languages. The Gripens were just arriving — screaming across Baltic airspace at treetop level — their tactical uplinks were finally delivering the full picture.

  It wasn’t pretty.

  Live-feed video from cockpit recorders painted a grim mosaic: Russian armour massing at multiple choke points, tank columns rolling through captured airfields, and artillery convoys rumbling inland from Latvian ports. On-screen, a wedge of T-90M3s and BTR-82A IFVs churned through the outskirts of Daugavpils. Naval supply ships offloaded equipment at Ventspils and Liepaja in tight, fast cycles — rehearsed and ruthless.

  Then came the most chilling feed of all.

  ***

  E77, Just south of Riga – Latvia. November 20th, 2040. 08:30LT

  He had taken off from Visby, he wasn’t the only one, but he was the only one headed to Riga. From liftoff to overfly, it took the Gripen pilot just over thirty minutes. He came in low over the Baltic, skirting around Kolka by treetop altitude, then nosed along the black ribbon of the Daugava River — the port of Riga visible to his left.

  What he saw was terrifying, a well-disciplined and seemingly bloodless invasion. The Ro/Ros and troop ships were just casually offloading vehicles and supplies to the pier, like they were there every day. He circled twice, his camera soaking up everything. On the third pass, warnings lit up on his glass like a Christmas tree and he realised that he had over stayed his welcome.

  After the surveillance captures, he was headed in the wrong direction to go out the same way he had come in, and with more warnings lighting up to the north, he turned south. Dropping to road level, using the E77 like a highway from hell, streaking southwest with multiple arcs of gunfire from ZSU-23s dotted around the harbour and at least one missile fired from a Tor missile system in his wake.

  He would have loved to throw some bombs their way, but he was running lean on this one, just two bags for range and two Meteors for those — just in case – moments.

  He was just about to make his turn west, when he spotted the column of MAZ-7917 transporter erector launchers further up the highway. They were unmistakable, truck-mounted nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, moving under camouflage netting and civilian convoy cover, heading south from Riga.

  The pilot didn’t call it in. Didn’t bother with protocol. There wasn’t time. He had seen what these missiles were capable of, and if they were nuclear tipped, that meant a balance shift of epic proportions.

  The man made an instant split-second decision. They could hang him later, he didn’t care.

  He slammed the throttle forward and the Gripen E screamed over the convoy like the mythical beast she was.

  On the first pass, he jettisoned the drop tanks — not to ignite them, that wouldn’t work, but to use them as blunt weapons. The heavy metal cylinders kicked off the racks at speed, smashed down onto the lead trucks, punching through windshields and crushing roof frames like tin. One tank ricocheted off the road and sheared straight into a launcher’s side. The convoy buckled and scattered in panic. But he wasn’t done.

  He pulled the stick back, almost instantly pulling 8.5 Gs, gaining altitude fast, in a near vertical climb — a rocket headed to the heavens, the G-force crushing him back into the seat, his spine compressing uncomfortably. Then he slammed the stick to the left, banking hard, and pulled it back into his crotch rolling inverted and flipping the Gripen into a nose down dive. The Swedish made jet was born for this kind of work and shrieked like a Valkyrie back down to earth, slipping seamlessly into the attack dive.

  His missiles were over the horizon air to air and useless for ground attack, so on this second pass, he threw the master arm into active, selected guns and emptied half the rounds of his Mauser BK-27 into the convoy. The Gripen flew like an eagle, while the cannon roared as if it sprang from the belly of a lion.

  Tracer fire and explosive HE rounds tore through the steel of the trucks, the solid fuel bodies of the missiles, his own fuel tanks, and flesh. One lucky shot — or perhaps divine providence — ignited the now drenched convoy in a rolling fireball that blossomed into a rising pillar of smoke and flame.

  The pilot got instant confirmation of secondary explosions, he felt the shockwave cascade through his airframe, even before he heard it. He angled his glass backward, he swore softly when he saw that the rear of the column had escaped much of the inferno. At least two trucks were still moving, trying desperately to get away from the flames and certain death.

  Eight of the ten launchers were burning though, their payload had exploded searing the trees in either direction and bubbling the tarmac surface with the resulting fireball. He could have left it at that, but two remained. His conscience, his duty demanded action

  He Came Back.

  The pilot pulled back on the stick and the Gripen roared skyward again, corkscrewed, pulled into a 9G roll over, diving again on the last two launchers. This time he pushed the pickle and didn’t let up until his Mauser autoloaders clicked dry in his eardrums.

  As he pulled out of the run, he thought of ?stersund in winter. Of his sister’s boys building snow forts. Of the silence on the lake when the ice was thick enough to walk on. Then he pushed the throttle forward again. If those launchers kept rolling, he’d become the last weapon they never expected.

  He was ready for that fourth pass. Empty guns, near empty tanks — didn’t matter. He wasn’t letting those launchers escape. The risk was too great. However, looking on the backwards camera feed, he saw he didn’t have to, and he sighed in relief, the slight echo of childish laughter still ringing in his ears… the column had ceased to exist and he turned for home.

  ***

  NATO Headquarters, Brussels – Belgium. November 20th, 2040. 08:59LT

  The feed cut out on the final pull-away, just as the HE rounds impacted cleanly with the missile bodies, cooking off the highly volatile solid fuel, the resulting explosion lighting up the early morning sky for miles behind him.

  That act of bravery, of defiance — impulsive, desperate, and devastating — would become a rallying point across Europe. His name would not be known for another two days. But the image of a lone Gripen tearing into a convoy of nuclear launchers would appear on walls from Stockholm to Sofia, beneath three simple words:

  He Came Back

  Yet even as cheers and disbelief rippled through the analysts watching the footage, the true danger was only just becoming clear. The Baltics were just a side show.

  Across the central tactical display — a six-metre by ten-metre digital projection of Eastern Europe — a new sequence of red markers began to bloom. At first they were subtle — a few blocked communications nodes, minor power disruptions, an unusual rail junction flicker. All dismissed in the chaos of the moment.

  Until someone noticed.

  “Oh fuck me!” a young Polish officer said aloud — too loud.

  Heads turned. Montcrieff’s among them.

  The officer pointed to the south. The map had changed. Ukraine was being flooded with red.

  The digital map lit up in slow, searing horror: red bands across the demilitarised zone. Entire data zones turned black — communications lost, power cut. South of Belarus, rail movements had spiked tenfold. From Belgorod, Russian heavy mechanised divisions were pouring across the border. Long-range radar showed Tu-95 bombers circling in strike patterns. And worst of all: satellite uplinks showed Iskander missiles launched from Crimea and the Donbas, streaking toward Odesa and Mykolaiv.

  A low murmur began to rise in the room, dread building like a tide.

  “They’re going for it,” Keating whispered.

  Montcrieff stared at the screen. His jaw tightened. “This isn’t opportunism. This was coordinated.”

  An Estonian intel officer muttered, “They want Ukraine. All of it.”

  “No,” Montcrieff said darkly. “They want the south. This is about more than Europe. Look, other columns are moving south towards Georgia and Azerbaijan, they’re opening a corridor.”

  He turned to Keating.

  “Get me confirmation from GCHQ and Langley. I want to know where their southbound convoys are heading. If I’m right, they’re not stopping at the Black Sea. They’re going to try for the Caspian.”

  He stepped toward the map.

  “The fuckers are consolidating. Look… Russia, Iran, probably Pakistan. We’re watching it form in real time.” Montcrieff stated. “I don’t think we have a choice anymore.”

  He picked the phone and dialled Paris.

  ***

  Polish–Belarusian Border – Eastern Europe. November 20th, 2040. 08:30LT

  As NATO command digested the scale of collapse, one nation had already made up its mind. One nation did not wait.

  One nation remembered what it meant to be invaded. To be carved up. To be abandoned by allies. Poland had long memories — of tanks rolling across open fields, of cities burned to ash, of resistance crushed beneath the weight of silence. And it had sworn never again.

  While NATO debated and strategists in Brussels scanned data feeds, a young Polish liaison officer had gone pale in the situation room. He said nothing. Just slammed back into his chair, yanked out his personal phone, and called his regimental commander on a secure line.

  As the call connected, he stood, stepped briskly out toward the corridor, and ducked into the nearest bathroom. The lights buzzed overhead. His hand trembled slightly — just enough to notice.

  When the voice on the other end answered, he said only four words:

  “Zaczynamy. Dla Warszawy.”(We begin. For Warsaw.)

  That was all it took.

  Across hundreds of kilometres of forward-deployed zones along the Belarusian border, engines thundered to life. Radio chatter flared, followed by the low grind of composite tracks on frozen mud. For a decade, Poland had prepared — quietly, methodically, furiously. Since the first war in Ukraine, since Crimea, since Donbas, since Bucha, they had planned for this very hour.

  Over 1,000 K2PL “Wilk” Black Panther tanks, flanked by thousands of Borsuk IFVs, Rosomak APCs, and Krab self-propelled howitzers, had been waiting for this moment beneath hardened shelters and camouflaged treelines. They slipped their brakes, aligned into assault formations, and surged forward, crossing the border.

  The first contact with Belarusian forces lasted all of six minutes. The Polish spearhead hit forward bunkers and border outposts like a hammer shattering glass. MBTs led the assault, targeting known S-400 positions and forward motor rifle depots. Behind them came rocket artillery and HIMARS batteries, saturating staging areas with suppressive fire.

  Polish attack helicopters — AW149s and upgraded Mi-24PLs — streaked low across treetops, pounding command nodes and logistics hubs. Tactical airstrikes from JAS 39 Gripens, Rafale Ds and FA-50 Golden Eagles out of Lask and Minsk Mazowiecki cleared the skies.

  This was not a simple probe. It was an invasion by fury.

  In the first 24 hours, Polish mechanised brigades had driven halfway to Minsk. By the end of the second day, advance recon elements had reached the Dnieper. Moscow itself was now mentioned in high-level planning documents — not as fantasy, but as objective.

  But that was the future.

  ***

  NATO Headquarters, Brussels – Belgium. November 20th, 2040. 10:00LT

  In the present, Montcrieff stared at the incoming sitrep from Warsaw — the Polish flag now overlaid across a shifting red line through Belarus. He didn’t need a translator. The meaning was brutally and painfully obvious.

  His hand had been forced.

  He turned to Keating and spoke quietly, the words sharp.

  “Those crazy fuckers! The fuse is well and truly lit now.”

  In the quiet between missile strikes and shouted orders, the world began to understand: this was not a war to be won. This was a future to be survived.