This scene contains violence, death, coercion and acts of misogyny.

---

Ayvarta, Solstice City — South Wall Defensive Line

Wave after wave of Nochtish infantry, sappers and armored vehicles hurled themselves at the walls of Solstice. The staggered marching ranks that appeared so clean over the hills broke into irregular masses as they approached the wall. Every incoming column lost scores of men and machines to an endless barrage of machine gun fire, howitzer shells and soon, the howling secret weapon of the Supreme High Command: rockets.

Blood, by the metric tonne, stained the white sand the color of wine. Piles of bodies choked up foxholes and makeshift trenches made by the previous barrages and exposed the new columns to more gunfire with less hiding places. Smoke from the shellfire and overheated machine guns lingered and turned the day dim; but the endless gunfire was a blessing, because the stench of gunpowder and fire and the unending din of the barrages and roaring of cannons drowned out the sheer absurd reek and riot of death.

Standing at their walls, the Ayvartans quietly manned their guns, every minute of shooting at least eroding their minds less than the bullets eroded northern flesh.

For some, it was a sight they were desensitized to, and with eyes wide and unblinking, they bore witness to a blur of indistinct violence. For others, it was justice, and they howled to their comrades that the imperialists were serving their time for their sin. These folks were welcomed, because the validation kept the rest a little more sane.

For a very select few, it was a disturbingly joyful chaos that they outright enjoyed.

Sometimes, over the endless cacophony of machine guns and howitzers, Brigadier General Nadia Al-Oraibi could hear the cackling of her colleague Brigadier General Gazini as she watched the unfolding carnage. Her expression was rapt, bright green eyes following the bombs across the sky and then twisting with laughter once they splashed fire and metal on some unsuspecting Nochtish unit, wiping it from the sands. She raised a machete into the sky and pointed out enemy units for the nearby wall gunners to attack, who then tried their best to oblige their superior. Gazini was easily pleased.

“Bravissimo gunnery crews! Splendido! Carve up the earth and drop them to hell!”

While the slightly out-of-place elf cheered on the gunners, the calmer General raised an eyebrow at the sight of the last ammunition truck parked behind the wall, its stores rapidly depleting. It had arrived an hour ago and none since had come to replace it.

Despite the volume of fire and the loss of life, this situation was untenable. They were unprepared for such a sudden attack; Nocht should have been 50 kilometers from Solstice, and any penetrations through the desert should have been no bigger than company-sized. Nakar had warned of deep strikes from the open desert, but who listened? Nadia had thought the probabilities too small. Now she was enacting a plan that required days of preparation with hours instead. Everything was a mess.

They had to break the Nochtish forces, to destroy their will to fight, and soon.

It would at least buy time to figure out what the front line looked like anymore.

Nadia pulled back the sleeve of her uniform to check her watch, and turned to the radio man at her feet, huddling behind the thick stone ramparts for cover. She arranged a few locks of sweat-drenched black hair behind her ear and cleared her throat. Even fully prepared, she found it difficult to speak, and the radio operator was forced to wait a moment with the handset to his face and his eyes staring up at the commander. She wondered what he saw: a stout and confident commander, or a skinny, sweaty bespectacled girl pulled from a basement office, stuffed in a coat and medals.

“One minute until the Prajna are ready to fire. I want Corps artillery on the line.”

“Yes General! Will do. And um; I know what you meant ma’am, but Prajna are controlled by the High Command, not Corps, so it’ll take me a moment to reach them.” He said.

“Thank you, Specialist.” said the General, her hands shaking ever so slightly.

Nodding and smiling gently, the young man returned to work on the radio.

Nadia felt foolish and she almost wanted to be buried in a hole, but it was to be expected. This was the front line and she was nervous. She was so unused to speaking, and especially to speaking loud enough to be heard over the sound of front-line fire.

“Never thought I’d hear ‘the Genius of Defenses’ stuttering like that.”

At her side, she saw the sleek, smirking face of Eleanora Gazini lighting up with mirth, and she turned the other cheek and surveyed the battlefield instead. And yet there was an impression of the woman left in her eyes, radiant despite her years and her filthy brain and soul. Elves were infurating; who knew how old any of them were, perpetually frozen in their mid-thirties or early forties at some point or other. Gazini was old enough to have served under and been jailed by three separate administrations in one war each. Yet she was rather beautiful, with one vibrant eye, a slender figure, flowing golden hair falling from under her cap, and a lovely complexion only marred by a scar or two.

She could hear Gazini moving closer by the ringing of the bell on the bright red dog collar around her scarred-up neck. Her fellow General swooped in closer and threw an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close with too much presumed familiarity. When Nadia stared at her sidelong, she caught a glimpse only of the black eyepatch.

“Al-Oraibi, you’re not a scholar anymore! You’re a General! And in this degenerate age of impersonal machines, you’re a General who gets to watch the front, like the Cavalry of old! Take it from this spent old bitch, the youth need to stand straight, and be merry!”

Though she had written extensively about what happened in theory in these situations, actually acting out the plans that she crafted as “The Genius of Defenses” was a new challenge. Especially with “The Cannibal Hound” as her neighboring commander.

“Your brand of merriment will just land me in prison.” Nadia shot back.

“It’s not bad! It builds character. You meet many interesting women.” Gazini shrugged.

On her arm was an iron shackle, worn to denote her status as part of a penal troop.

Nadia stared at it with disdain.

“Ma’am!”

The radio operator called to her from below and Nadia was grateful for the attention.

“Are the Prajna crews taking suggestions for targets?” Nadia asked. “I have a few.”

Gazini covered her mouth to stifle a little chuckle while Nadia gave the coordinates.

Below them the scattered remnants of another wave of Nochtish infantry coalesced into a dreadful mass and made a push for the wall once more. On their backs were large bags of explosives that Nadia had witnessed going off in isolation before, detonated by shells and fire. They were powerful bombs, more powerful than any Nadia had seen carried by infantry before. It was the objective of their attacks to blow a hole in the wall using the explosives, Nadia quickly surmised. She had since had her units target them specifically.

However, Nadia had her own powerful explosives available.

Within minutes of her request, she felt the ground beneath her, the wall upon which she stood, quivering with a force originating from the city center. Overhead the massive shells of the Prajna cannons soared skyward in an acute arc, rising into the clouds completely out of sight before careening earthwards. Nadia and Gazini watched the super-heavy shell as it crashed to earth amid the teeming mass of the enemy in front of them and exploded widly, detonating their bombs and consuming the enemy charge.

White fires spread across the desert in front of them. Gazini stared, bewildered.

From the initial explosion flew a cloud of burning fragments that clung to bodies. Sticky, flashing white-and-red fire spread throughout the corpse-choked trenches and foxholes and sandbars, consuming the bodies as fuel and leaping atop any survivors like hissing imps, grappling screaming men to the floor and twisting them into horrific shapes. A smell, a smell more terrible than the gunpowder and carrion, rose from the sin below and up to the wall, where Nadia caught a whiff. She recoiled. It was chemical, awful.

“Tell the Prajna crews the experimental white phosphorous super-heavy incendiary worked. Nocht should not have exposed Madiha Nakar to such weapons.” Nadia said.

“It’s beautiful!” Eleanora Gazini cried out, clapping her hands, the inferno below reflected in her eyes, burning figures dancing with the flames. “Oh, what a sight!”

Nadia thought Gazini might shed a tear, but instead she picked up a radio from off the backpack carried by another man who had a shackle around his lower arm. Her voice lost is cheery, girlish tone as she addressed the men on the other end of the cord, barking at them like a mother or a teacher giving pitiless discipline to some misguided flock.

“Hey you laggards, isn’t it about time you made your appearance? You’re making me look bad! Such a beautiful battlefield and you haven’t the dignity to seek glory in it? Go!”

From somewhere below the wall, trap doors opened, and from them emerged men in fireproof hardsuits and welder’s masks, with machetes, trench shotguns, and pistols in hand. Screaming like the berserkers of the northern legends, they stormed out to meet the remaining Nochtish forces. Amid the white fires, the field of corpses and the blowing sand of the khamsin, they must have seemed like demons. Nadia saw the incoming fresh wave of Nochtish men crest the sands toward the killing field, and upon witnessing the horrors ahead of them, they broke before they even set foot into gun range, and fled.

“Pursue!” Gazini shouted into the radio. “Your heroism in defense of the capital in these desperate times, will be rewarded! You do well and we’ll be made a real rifle division!”

She sounded almost giddy at the prospect.

Nadia, already in a real rifle division, knew not why.

She sighed, and laid back upon the wall, sweating profusely, breathing heavily.

War was just a mathematical equation, or so she had thought.

She solved this one, at least. But there would be more. And today wasn’t even over yet.

“We need to convene with Nakar. How’s the Conqueror’s Way holding up?” Nadia asked.

Below her, the radio man made the relevant call out to his counterpart across the city.

“I’m getting interference ma’am.” He said, confused. “It’s like there’s a storm out there.”

---

Ayvarta, Solstice City — Conqueror’s Way

Yanyu Zhuge waited for a little bird, but none would send a pity chirp her way.

She withdrew her own pistol and took aim at Aatto Stormyweather, who in turn pressed her own pistol harder against the temple of Madiha Nakar. Aatto struggled to hold the general, who was severely weakened by her recent traumas but strong enough to be a nuisance. The two of them were each screaming all manner of things at Yanyu.

“Shoot her! She’s too dangerous to be allowed to escape!”

“Shut up! I’ll really shoot, you know! Don’t fuck with me!”

It made the grimness of this scene almost subtextual. Everything looked an utter farce.

Yanyu felt the stupidest of the three. She had relied so much on the little birds, on the whispers in her brain that told her what to expect, what would happen, what should happen. It was hard to stand on her own two feet with the kind of confidence she once had. How did one respond to one’s own complete failure? She stood with her pistol up, paralyzed with indecision. Everything felt surreal and heavy and impossible now.

“Fuck this! Listen you! I demand all the Nochtish prisoners be released right now–”

“Don’t listen to her! Shoot me and I’ll use the spark to blow her to pieces!”

“What? Are you crazy? You don’t even know if that will work! Just shut the fuck up!”

“Both of you shut up!” Yanyu shouted, suddenly shooting her own gun.

Her bullet landed at Aatto’s feet and the dog-eared woman nearly leaped with fear.

She barely managed to retain control of Madiha, who tried in vain to escape.

Aatto pulled her back by the neck and aimed her pistol at her head once more.

“Hey! You think I won’t do it? Stop this crazy bullshit and start a prisoner exchange–”

“Oh, no need, I’m here! I’m the only prisoner!”

Before Yanyu’s temper could snap again and cause an even more grievous mistake, all three of them were drawn to a shadow walking in through the clouds. He approached amicably, his hands raised over his blond hair and a mirthful expression on his face.

“Von Drachen!” Aatto shouted.

Yanyu moved as invisible and instant as a gust of wind.

In the blink of an eye she had Von Drachen on the ground, one arm twisted behind his back, his bent legs controlled by her own, and her gun behind the man’s neck. Both the speed of her attack and general shape of the contortion she had put him in seemed utterly beyond human, and Aatto stared in astonishment at the scene. Her gun trembled against Madiha’s head. She was clearly unsure of what to do in this situation.

“I’ll shoot him.” Yanyu said. “Free Madiha this instant.”

“God damn it! You fucking idiot!” Aatto shouted, hurling abuse at Von Drachen.

“Everything is fine.” He said in a choked voice, wincing as Yanyu applied pressure.

“You escape from the Ayvartans and get captured again? And you call yourself a man? You’re a garbage little boy playing soldier! I should shoot you myself!” Aatto yelled.

“I’m doing my best.” Von Drachen replied. “I still have options. Let me think.”

“Think fast.” Yanyu said.

She seemed to press her knee somewhere uncomfortable, and Von Drachen gasped.

“Any ideas?” Aatto shouted.

“She has beautiful, powerful legs, Stormyweather.” Von Drachen muttered.

Aatto grit her teeth. “Ugh! Fine, we’ll free our prisoners together. Let’s just break even.”

“I agree. Clearly this is not the destined hour of our deaths.” Yanyu replied.

Madiha seemed to then regain the manic energy she lost while struggling.

“Don’t do it! Von Drachen is extremely dangerous! We can take both out–”

Aatto smashed the back of Madiha’s head with the pistol and knocked her out.

She threw the body on the ground. “I’m walking away. Let that guy go, you hear?”

Yanyu watched Aatto intently as the dog-eared woman started walking back, cycling her aim between Madiha and Yanyu but retreating as she had promised. Yanyu slowly released Von Drachen from her grip, and the humiliated General stood at an anguished pace, as if collecting the bones he was using to raise his arms and legs one by one.

Soon, he vanished in the fog alongside his psychic companion.

And when the fog started to vanish with them, Yanyu sighed with relief, and awaited rescue from the walls. The Gate went miraculously down, tanks and infantry came rolling out, but the battle was over long before the reinforcements arrived. Yanyu propped Madiha up against a wall and tried to make her look dignified as her subordinates approached. Despite wavering at the end, she was still a hero today.

---

50th of the Lilac’s Bloom, 2030 D.C.E

Ayvarta, Solstice City — Field Infirmary, 1st Guard’s

Madiha dreamed of evil, thrashing emotions.

Her slumber had no coherent designs, no poignant imagery.

It was all fire and rage, loud directionless sound. There was shaking cold that traveled through copious sweat that tore across her body like razor blades. There was violence, a horrible dehumanizing violence of the senses that ripped her brain in half. Violence unrelenting upon her body. It was an indescribable, formless pain upon herself, from all sides. There were bullets from without, and a brutal slashing coming from within.

Unbeknownst to her she was moaning, screaming.

There was no sense of time. She could’ve been suffering a million years.

Then without warning, she bolted upright, coughing and choking when suddenly the need to breathe returned to her. She felt a sharp pain shoot down her body from her head. All of her senses turned on at once. What little light was coming into her space was too bright, and what little sound she heard was too loud. Her skin was clammy, and her whole body heavy and hurting. Her stomach burned, a cauldron empty save for acid.

“Madiha! Take this.”

She heard the familiar, supportive voice of Parinita Maharani, her lover and confidante and deputy; she felt her warm, soft hands thrust something into hers that was cold to the touch. Parinita helped Madiha lift the drink to her mouth, and Madiha drank. Once she got used to the sensation of drinking, she downed the entire cup of soda water.

“Parinita.” Madiha said, breathing heavily.

“I’m here.” Parinita said. She held Madiha’s hand.

When her eyes finally got used to the lights, Madiha could see her lover’s eyes, her bouncy strawberry hair, her peachy skin and her red-painted lips. She smiled, weakly, and still breathing heavily, but feeling safe and at home with the one she loved.

“I’m sorry.” Madiha said.

“Oh you will be!” Parinita replied, weeping suddenly. “When you get better I’m going to make you watch the most cringe-worthy theater adaptations I can find on film, I’ll punish you thoroughly for being so reckless after you told me you wouldn’t!”

“I’m really sorry.” Madiha said, weeping herself. “I’ll accept my punishment.”

“Ah damn, now I’m gonna cry even harder.” Parinita said. “Ugh. I was useless again.”

Before Madiha could say anything to assuage her lover’s anxieties, the flap of cloth that covered the entrance to the infirmary swung open, and the two of them had to quickly stifle their tears and try not to look too lovey-dovey in the presence of whoever had just entered the room. Madiha was nearly blinded again by the sudden intrusion of more light into the room, but she did see a pair of figures in uniform trenchcoats walk in.

“General, I’m glad you’re awake. Congratulations are in order.”

“Hah! I knew you’d bounce right back. You’re unkillable, they say.”

Madiha knew both of the visitors. She knew the first one to speak exceedingly well: it was Nadia Al-Oraibi, the General known as ‘The Genius of Defenses.’ A young woman with a tired, loveless expression on her face, her body thin and long-limbed, her sweat-slick skin the color of desert stone. She arranged her black hair behind one of her ears, fidgeting with it. At her side was the wildcard known as ‘The Cannibal Hound’, Eleanora Gazini. Though she ruthlessly self-flagellated her own age, calling herself a “spent bitch” and an “old harpy” far more often than tasteful, Eleanora looked as vibrant as an elfin girl half her age, blonde-haired, emerald-eyed, fair-skinned.  Though she was scarred up, especially around her neck and missing eye, she was tall, sleek and quite sparkling.

Gazini used to be a prisoner of war before; Madiha was still hazy on her promotion.

Both of them approached for handshakes. Al-Oraibi gave her a proper and very quick shake, while Gazini seemed to want to rip her arm off, drawing a predatory glance from Parinita. After exchanging pleasantries the arrivals sat across from Madiha; Al-Oraibi properly, and Gazini backward, pressing her breasts against the back of the chair.

“General Nakar, as I said, congratulations are in order. We believe that, unknowingly, you endured the main objective of the Nochtish attack. Your destruction of the Nochtish secret weapon prevented a breach in our most vulnerable sector.” Al-Oraibi said. “And with the western desert thrust scattered, Nochtish forces have retreated back to their main lines 50 kilometers away from the city, out of artillery range. Though their forces are likely extending slowly northward and eastward in the deserts, the city is safe.”

“Yes, well done! Our work isn’t over yet, but you really sent those goons packing. As far as the desert is concerned, I sent some of my undesirables into the sand in pursuit.” Gazini said with a vicious little grin. “If they come back, we might get something to work with on how far the Nochtish lines have stretched out and how thick they’ve gotten.”

Al-Oraibi stared at Gazini with consternation. “Our recon aircraft will do that work.”

“Our air recon is amateurish and you know it. They’ve given us the wrong coordinates to everything except the most intimidating rocks and sand pits in Solstice.” Gazini replied.

“And you think a bunch of inmates on horseback can do better?” Al-Oraibi snapped.

“I don’t think anything about those scum, but for their sake, they’ll find something.”

Al-Oraibi turned away from Gazini and started to very obviously ignore her. “General, once you are up and about, we need to go over any actionable intelligence together. As our mechanized element, the defense of the city beyond the walls will fall on you.”

Madiha nodded her head silently. Al-Oraibi’s unit was largely infantry and relatively static, with their motor vehicles in use as artillery and ammunition transports. Gazini’s unit had some motor transport but as a penal unit, were not allowed to use it freely. Most of the motor and tank power in the city lay in Madiha’s hands, with only a few other, smaller tactical units given to the southern defensive army. Outside the city, the rather green northern and eastern armies had motor and tank units, but they were raw, and untested. High Command was cautious about committing them so soon after formation.

For better or worse, the SIVIRA had adopted a posture that Solstice should be self sufficient as possible in its own defense, and the industrial might of untouched North Ayvarta was being hoarded and accumulated cautiously. Though the new armies were theoretically powerful, the High Command was saving them for when an opportunity arose for a massive counteroffensive. Everyone had the mindset that Solstice was still in the defensive phase, and so the new armies shouldn’t be wielded. After all, many old officers had been court martialed or shot in grim 2030 for wasting good armies on pointless attacks when they could’ve been defending strategically and saving themselves.

Madiha knew the southern army was in a bad way from defending Solstice for so long.

It was not in any state to counterattack, not by itself.

But Madiha had other ideas about the state of the army as a whole.

“I’m recovering fast.” Madiha said. “Once I’m back up, I will be heading to the SIVIRA to propose that a counteroffensive be planned in the northwest and eastern desert.”

Al-Oraibi and Gazini stared at one another; Al-Oraibi in horror, Gazini in awe.

“You splendid nutcase!” Gazini said. “I will give my full recommendation!”

“Your word means nothing, you chained-up dog.” Al-Oraibi said. “Nakar, this is crazy.”

“I know.” Madiha replied. “It’s a gamble. But we have to do something.”

Parinita smiled from the side of the bed, and sighed fondly, shaking her head.

“I cannot support this. And furthermore, we should also consult our new comrades.” Al-Oraibi said, reaching for any out. “The Helvetians and the Kitanese might not consent–”

Behind them, the cloth covering the entrance flapped up once more.

Yanyu Zhuge arrived then, dressed in a lovely, form-fitting, long-sleeved silk gown.

Madiha averted her gaze, but the Kitanese woman seemed to harbor no ill will.

She was smiling, and she spoke as if she had heard the entire conversation.

“A little bird told me our comrades are ready to attack.” She said, winking one eye.

---

Ayvarta, Solstice Desert — Nocht FOB, “Ostlich Wüste”

After the punishment received at the hands of the Ayvartan superguns, the remains of the forces sent against the walls hastily retreated to the 50 kilometer “safe zone” in the desert surrounding the city. Their own gamble had failed: sneaking in units through the desert gave them access to the city past the South Solstice Front, but they could not move enough firepower to be decisive. Almost all of the Corps that had made it through was infantry and light tanks, and almost all of it had been destroyed. Now the remainder risked being trapped between the Solstice garrison and the South Solstice Front.

Progress along the coasts was slow but it was happening, but the city and the armies in the desert around it still represented a massive bulge against in the Nochtish lines. In order for the Fennec group of forces to survive, they would have to link up with either the elven coastal forces, many hundred kilometers away; or sneak back through south.

Right now, however, Von Fennec was preoccupied with assigning blame instead.

Far in the background, the tank transporters lumbered away despondently and the remaining infantry marched away alongside them. Von Fennec ordered Aatto Jarvi Stormyweather and Petra Hamalainen Happydays to follow him out behind a large boulder jutting out of the sand, and he stood them between himself and the stone.

He then started to shout at them, at first incomprehensibly. For the past few days they had been marching he had been quiet, but now he seemed to be letting it all out.

“I blame this on you, witch! We lost the superweapon, we lost massive amounts of men, we lost our shot at the wall, and all because you fell asleep on the job when you should’ve been our secret weapon! You’re nothing but a trumped-up fog machine!”

Aatto grit her teeth and closed her fists, and Petra rubbed a gentle hand across her arm as a gesture of sympathy, and to try to calm her down. Around them the air grew colder.

“General–”

“Quiet, radio girl!” Von Fennec raised an index finger just a hair’s breadth away from Aatto’s face. “Us Louplanders, we’re treated as the scum of the Federation, because of people like you! Those of us who work hard and uphold the Federation’s values keep being brought down into the dirt by barbarians like you, Stormyweather! You are the reason that our kind will never make it! You disgust me! I made General in this army, the only Louplander General in the regular forces, and now look at what you’ve done to me! I will go back to the Oberkommando and be humiliated and demoted, my work undone!”

“I don’t give a shit about you or your precious Federation! Fuck you!” Aatto spat back.

“You had better start caring! Our homeland will never become anything without the Federation! That’s the work I’m trying to promote! And I thought I could have an ally in you, but you’re content to be another drunken, hedonistic bitch in my way instead!”

“General!” Petra shouted, scandalized. “Aatto’s done everything she could–”

In one brutal snap Von Fennec put his hand across Petra’s cheek, knocking her down.

“Don’t raise your voice to me!”

Aatto’s calm finally broke and the subtle cold around them became a wintry gust.

Von Fennec gasped as his throat closed. He struggled as his body raised off the ground.

“Aatto no!” Petra shouted from the ground, weeping, rubbing her cheek.

Aatto’s eyes burned with blue vapor.

The atmosphere around her was dense with power.

She had her hand outstretched, her teeth grit. She growled, and squeezed her hand as if struggling with Von Fennec’s physical throat. He thrashed and coughed in the air before her, helpless against her attack. Petra made it to her feet and grabbed hold of her, and she shouted and pleaded, but Aatto would not acknowledge her and pressed her attack.

Von Fennec’s fingers wildly struggled against his belt.

He seemed to finally shake something loose and brandished it at her.

Aatto’s eyes dimmed, and the cold dispersed from around her like a popped bubble.

Von Fennec fell to the ground, and raised himself back up, gasping for breath.

Aatto was suddenly stunned, and she moved as if in a trance, trying to raise her hands to attack Von Fennec again, but doing so too slowly and limply to have any effect.

Petra, still holding on to Aatto, looked at Von Fennec in horror.

In his hands there was a small purple cube attached to some sort of horrible little mechanical stand, like a compass with a skeletal claw set on top, clutching the cube. Every so often the little metal fingers would turn the cube on its axis, one rotation, and there would be a tiny, almost imperceptible spark of some dim, purple-black energy.

Could Petra see it because she was a little bit psychic herself?

She could feel something dreadful from it, but it didn’t have the effect it had on Aatto.

“You absolute dog.” Von Fennec gasped. “Not so mighty now?”

He struggled to walk up to Aatto and smacked her with his other hand.

“No!” Petra shouted, but she was too scared to stand up to Fennec herself.

Von Fennec ignored her, focused entirely on Aatto with a cruel, cold gaze.

“You think this wasn’t foreseen? You belong to the Federation, witch!”

Von Fennec raised the device to Aatto’s face, and the catatonic Aatto stared at it.

“This wasn’t the protocol, but to hell with it. If you won’t be an ally, you’ll be a tool.”

“Please stop!” Petra shouted.

“I said shut up, you worthless peasant!”

Von Fennec raised his hand again.

From the desert, a gunshot rang out.

Von Fennec’s fingers flew from his hand before they could come down on Petra.

Blood spurted down on his face. He brought his wounded hand down and stared at it.

He looked up at the rock; Petra looked over her own shoulder in disbelief.

Gaul Von Drachen emerged from around the stone landmark, brandishing his pistol.

“You should show a little more respect for women, Von Fennec! Do you not know the sort of things they go through? Aatto and Petra experience your oppression twofold.”

He walked nonchalantly up to Von Fennec, and kicked him in the knee.

Von Fennec fell back, screaming and thrashing, dropping the device.

“Von Drachen! You traitor! You’re turning against us! Just like you turned against the anarchists! I knew you would!” Von Fennec cried out, making as if to try to crawl away.

“Ah, you have me all wrong. I think you’re the one who betrayed our values.”

Von Drachen picked up the device he dropped, and threw it into the desert.

It struck a rock, and shattered.

At the site of the impact and upon the very second it was struck, the device issued a wave of purple-black electricity, lightning, energy — whatever one could call the effect — that surged and grew into a perfectly circular blast, a hole in reality, consuming everything. A few meters in diameter across three dimensional space, the blast seemed to sink into itself after a few seconds, and left behind a perfectly circular hole in the ground.

For a moment, it was as if it had left a perfectly circular hole in the wind too, a spot where the gently blowing sand of the desert had been consumed in mid-air.

“Huh. Interesting. Anyway, I do this for the Federation and all of that.”

Von Drachen nonchalantly aimed his pistol at Von Fennec and shot him in the head.

Petra screamed with horror.

Aatto blinked, and looked around herself in confusion.

“Oh shit, I must’ve killed the old fuck. Damn, ugh, I really did it–”

She noticed Von Drachen then.

“Wait–”

Von Drachen shrugged for an instant.

He then shouted. “Snipers! Snipers in the desert! Double time! Double time!”

He pushed Aatto and Petra by the shoulders away from the site.

“Let us agree,” he whispered, “that Von Fennec was just a regrettable casualty of war.”

Petra was speechless and upset by everything, and merely sobbed and clung to Aatto.

Aatto, meanwhile, grinned viciously. “I won’t miss him.”

---

Previous Part || Next Part

 

 

Ayvarta, Solstice — East Wall Defensive Line

Conqueror’s Way felt quiet once the Vishap ceased to be.

Without the rumbling of its tracks, the roaring of its engine, the cruel shouting of its gun; the cracking of ordinary rifles and the puttering of submachine guns felt insignificant. There was still a battle beneath the wall. Nochtish frogmen and Ayvartan rifle troops exchanged sporadic gunfire on opposing sides of the bridge in front of the gate door. Though Drachen took an early advantage through deceit and the superior fire of the submachine gunners against the bleary-eyed, exhausted Ayvartan troops on their last clips of rifle shot, they were still fighting under the shadow of the wall. They were alone.

And thus the outcome seemed to become suddenly fixed against them.

Madiha Nakar’s eyes were burning. She wiped tears on her sleeve and complained of sand in her eyes to deflect from it. Parinita could see the effects, but remained quiet.

“I have to get a closer look.” Madiha said, as if asking for permission.

“Be careful.” Parinita said. Though she had once told the General that it was her duty to command and not to endanger herself unnecessarily, she understood the circumstances.

And she trusted her lover to return to her.

Madiha turned back to the desert.

There was something out there, something eerie and foul. Wary of its presence Madiha surveyed the battlefield beneath her, spotting the Vishap’s final resting place on one edge of the bridge. Could Nocht have uncovered a power like the Majini or some other aberrant monstrosity? It was those things that usually had this effect on Madiha.

It would be a dire scene indeed if Nocht deployed some supernatural aid to get back their machine. Before whatever was out there could pounce upon her, Madiha had to decide the remainder of this battle. “On my signal, I want creeping fire all across the bridge!”

There were nods and salutes in recognition. “Yes ma’am!”

“I’ll direct it from below!”

Without warning Madiha grabbed a rope and a kit of mountain gear and descended the wall, rappelling down the side at a quick but careful pace. She dropped alongside several Svechthan mountain rifle troops whom she had called in as reinforcements. Though the bridge gate was still out, Madiha had ordered engineers to drop rappelling cables and rope ladders, and for climb-capable troops to go down and fight and then help in evacuating back up the wall. Atop the wall, snipers and machine gunners anchored themselves to the stone and leaned over the ramparts, weapons trained on the enemy.

They would provide cover for all of these affairs, but served a second purpose also.

Soon as she hit the ground, Madiha raised her revolver pistol and shot into the air.

“Across the enemy side! Annihilating fire!”

Atop the rampart, the machine gunners and snipers opened up on Nocht.

Opposite the bridge from the Ayvartan positions, a storm of gunfire swept across the stone. Blazing automatic fire punctuated by the heavy sound of BKV anti-tank sniper rifles brought the Vishap to life again in spirit, drowning out the frogmen and their submachine guns. Behind the cover of the bridge the river ran red; a dozen men seemed to drop like a line of dominoes into the water, riddled with bullets that fell like rain.

One man stood suddenly alone in the squall, leaping over the bridge wall to safety.

He looked dazed for a moment, crouching behind rubble with a pistol in hand.

Madiha cracked a little grin as she approached the Nochtish officer, brandishing her revolver. She casually walked around the stone that the officer had put his back to; she pressed the barrel of her gun on the back of his neck. Suppressing the heat and tears from her eyes as much as she could, Madiha ordered the man to stand, and he did.

Slowly, the man turned around with a wan look on his face.

Grinning viciously, she pressed the gun up against the bottom of his chin, raising it up.

“Drachen, isn’t it? You’ve a knack for this, I see.” Madiha said.

Opposite her, Gaul Von Drachen raised his hands and smiled suddenly.

“Ah, how ironic; while on the one hand I am in quite a bind, it is bittersweet to finally achieve recognition as a nemesis. Even in such a situation as this.” Von Drachen said.

“I recognize that you’re a consistent failure.” Madiha said.

Von Drachen shrugged as much as he could in his condition.

“We try things. Sometimes they work.” Von Drachen said.

Madiha had to admit to herself that this moment felt intoxicating.

This feeling of triumph, superiority. She had crushed him. She and her troops had struggled so much; they had lost lives, they had been pushed back to Solstice. And after humiliation and humiliation, this was a victory. Not a Pyrrhic victory, not a fighting retreat. Nocht failed to breach the wall — any of the walls — and lost a multitude of units and now, one of their premier generals. And that last catch was Madiha’s to reel in.

“You’re going to try a cornucopia of new things, Drachen.” Madiha said, giving in a little to that ferocious side of herself. “A procession of interrogation rooms, a few hearings with the Ayvartan Military Tribunal. Maybe a firing squad.” She cracked another grin.

“This is so unlike you.” Von Drachen frowned. “This stock military personality. I preferred that air of arcane mystery, that– that angelic, child-like naivety, that rounded out your killing edge. Mayhap I can speak to the other Madiha Nakar right now?”

“Shut up, Von Drachen.” Madiha said.

Who did this idiot think he was? To speak to her with such familiarity?

Von Drachen sighed. “I’m distraught. I wanted your war to be outsider art.”

Madiha swung her revolver and struck Von Drachen across the cheek, drawing blood and knocking him to the floor. She acted on reflex; she was angry, and his despicable, performative familiarity hit a raw nerve. She hated him. She wanted to kill him.

Her fingers shook on the trigger, but she mastered herself in time.

Turning her head, she called for one of the Svechthan mountaineers to come closer.

“Restrain him and lift him up the wall. I want him confined to a solitary hot box and curing in the sun before the gate is repaired!” She said, shouting out an order.

At once, the mountain troops grabbed hold of Drachen and began to work on him.

Madiha turned from her defeated foe to the Vishap while her soldiers restrained him.

Though much of the machine had been damaged, there was enough of it left to perhaps reverse engineer some of its remaining complicated systems. Madiha was not an engineer, but she thought its ability to bear the load of such massive armor and still move must have been mechanically impressive after its trip through the desert.

“Once the gate is repaired I want that hunk of metal dragged inside.” Madiha ordered.

Alongside her, inspecting the tank also, Charvi Chadgura saluted in recognition.

“Yes ma’am!”

She turned back to the tank, and then slowly turned to the side, staring off the bridge.

“Something wrong?” Madiha asked.

There were were heat mirages that warped everything exposed to the light of the sun. Solstice was scorching, a hot plate of a region with more desert than some countries had land. Madiha had gotten used to the heat, more or less, but when it came time to get her bearings she did not have the eyes to beat the mirages. Staring in the same direction as Chadgura she saw the sand and the river shore dancing, and the sky no more stable.

Then Chadgura turned to the bridge, and pointed.

“It’s Gulab.” She said.

Her face expressionless and her tone void of emotion, Chadgura stretched her out and Madiha’s eyes followed the line of it to the bridge ahead. Three small figures tumbled and tossed in the mirages; when they were close enough to penetrate the illusions, it was clear the bodies belonged to Gulab Kajari and two of her subordinates. Gulab was unarmed, roughed up; her braided ponytail was pulled almost free of its characteristic twists, her face was caked in grease and blood and dirt, her hands were shaking. The two privates with her looked no better. They stopped short of the General, and of the Vishap they sent to the slaughter, and bent to their knees, gasping for breath, barely speaking.

“Cloud,” Gulab began, breathing ragged, “Cloud, over there. Weird cloud. Coming.”

Madiha ripped the binoculars from Chadgura’s belt while the latter rushed to put a knee down beside Kajari and look her over, administering first aid on several wounds.

“Ow! That, stings, Charvi,”

“Be brave. I love you.”

Through the binoculars, Madiha stared over the heads of her lovebird subordinates and into the desert, where there was indeed a gaseous mantle spreading forward from the dunes. Though at first she wanted to believe it was the khamsin, or a run of the mill sandstorm brewing up, Madiha knew it was not dark enough nor quick enough to be either of these things. There was no characteristic blowing of sand, no trickle of cutting wind to build into a true desert storm. This was some other anomaly entirely.

Her eyes began to burn again. She could feel it; inside the cloud.

She threw the binoculars on the ground and produced her radio.

“Sound the biohazard alarm! Nocht’s launched a gas attack! Evacuate everyone off this bridge now, right now!” She shouted. “Right now!” She put down her radio and ignored the protests of the receiving operator who wanted standard procedural confirmation.

Chadgura, Gulab and the younger soldiers all their snapped their heads up in alarm.

“All of you need to run away now!” Madiha shouted.

From her hip pack, she produced a gas mask.

Gulab’s face went pale. “You can’t go out there General! If it’s really poison gas–”

“I’m going to confirm.” Madiha said. “Run now! That’s an order.”

Madiha shoved past Gulab and in parting pushed her as if to take the first step for her.

She charged away, donning the mask, as the cloud started to move over the bridge.

Madiha looked over her shoulder once, to see if her order was being followed.

She saw troops starting to go back over the ropes. Gas masks were handed out.

Gulab was protesting, but Chadgura and her subordinates pulled her back and away.

Everyone saw the cloud now. They could not overlook it. It was as if the sky had been drawn to the earth somehow. Thick white gas emanating from seemingly everywhere swallowed up the landscape ahead, progressively picking up speed from walking to running pace as it approached. Conqueror’s Way fell to the devouring mist. It was unlike anything the desert had seen before, and Madiha was running right into the center.

Her eyes burned so bad she thought they’d turn to jelly; she fought to suppress the feeling. She broke through the cloud, almost expecting it to eject her, to solidify and smash her to pieces as if she’d ran into a brick wall. She felt instead the gas parting, and an eerie, desiccating cold, an antithesis of both the dry heat and clinging humidity she was used to. This was not poison gas. She knew that. She’d always known it.

She just wanted everyone to get out. She knew there was something dangerous here.

Her vision was limited; the gas mask was restrictive. It must have been how horses felt–

Madiha felt a pinprick, a shock, a bolt of something from her side, that told her to duck.

She dropped suddenly mid-run.

And she felt something big and heavy going over her head.

Madiha skidded clumsily to a stop on the ground, and cast off her gas mask.

She found a chunk of something glistening, transparent blue, smashed into the bridge.

“Huh. You avoided it.”

Amid parting mists on a ruined bridge in the middle of the great desert, two primal forces met, eyes locked on one another. Madiha felt the burning ever worse, as she laid eyes upon the woman in the black Nochtish uniform with the eagle on her peaked cap. Long, black hair, dark skin, and icy eyes; tall, lean, powerful. She carried herself with an easy, careless gait, her furry ears twitching, her fuzzy tail curling in the air as if with the wind itself. Something about her provoked a psychic revulsion. Madiha felt the horrid twinge of hatred, twisting at her heart, gripping her brain in frustrated malice.

She mastered herself, as much as she could. She was shaking.

Both of them were shaking. She saw the woman’s clenched fist, quivering.

Her eyes seethed with icy mist the way Madiha’s raged with smoke and flame.

“Get out of my way.”

She was pushing; just like Madiha pushed. But she was pushing with her voice.

She was trying to control Madiha. Nakedly, openly, casually, and without remorse.

Gritting her teeth in anger, Madiha stood up from the ground defiantly.

Her counterpart smiled. “Oh shit! You can do it, can’t you?”

As the woman said this she reared back and pitched something at Madiha.

Almost instinctively Madiha pushed and swatted a baseball-sized chunk of hail away.

“Ha ha! You can! So I can’t just fuck with your head like I do everyone else then.”

“What do you call it?” Madiha asked. “ESP or Magic?”

“The Doctors say ESP and the Church men say Magic. I don’t care.”

Neither of them was speaking the same language. Madiha could tell from reading her lips that this woman was speaking some form of Nochtish, and Madiha herself was pointedly speaking in standard Ayvartan. But they understood one another, the words from their lips both perfect for the physical motions of their speech and yet, understood, universally. They were both people who could fundamentally understand anything.

Madiha realized that this was their Madiha. As she was the Warlord, maybe this was the–

She knew it immediately. This was the Champion.

“Madiha Nakar.” She said.

Across from her, the woman grinned viciously.

It reminded Madiha too much of her own grin, when she felt the ferocity rise in her.

“Aatto Jarvi Stormyweather.”

Their next instant went fast as lightning.

Madiha threw a hand forward and pushed, and in the same instant Aatto pushed back.

There was a glimmer in their eyes and a blinding flash in the world.

Like a curtain drawing and shutting, the mist blew apart and settled back in a second.

Madiha’s hand snapped back painfully and she slid a meter away.

Aatto drew back as if she’d been charged to the shoulder, gripping her wrist.

Neither could flick the other away as they had gotten used to doing to objects, to pests.

“You know, that shit makes me kinda mad.” Aatto said.

“You and me both.” Madiha replied.

There was something ushering them forward, driving them insane.

A weight, a rushing force that prevented them from turning.

There was history at their backs, more than the 2031 years they even knew.

And it bayed for blood.

---

Read The Previous Part || Read The Next Part

48th of the Lilac’s Bloom, 2031 D.C.E

Ayvarta, City of Solstice — Armaments Hill

Premier Daksha Kansal saw the smoke trail from the Prajna shots trace the sky outside her window. She steepled her fingers on her desk, and waited for news. For the Prajna to fire required her authorization: she was informed of every target, of the ammunition to be used and the aftermath of the attack. Prajna ammunition was valuable and hard to manufacture. It was quite alarming then, that the Prajnas had been fired several dozen times since the Nochtish army moved within its 50 kilometer maximum range.

While she waited, she went over a packet of disparate combat reports given to her by her SIVIRA, the overall HQ unit for the Golden Army. There was no connection between the reports: a battle report from Sahr, a month ago; three weeks ago a skirmish between a patrol unit and an elven forward element around Kharabad; five days ago, a sniping shootout between a special agent of the KVW and a Jager from the Nochtish army.

There was only one connecting thread. All of the men and women highlighted in these reports for their heroics, gallantry, and exemplary bravery in holding back the enemy, had died cementing their legends. Daksha had to review each case so she could write a letter awarding them the title of Hero of the Socialist Peoples. It would have been an affront to them to simply send a form letter to their grieving parents. Every Hero Daksha crowned would receive a full accounting. Even if she had to spend hours and hours.

She never shook; she never wept. She had given every tear years and years ago. But she was not an automaton. It was exhausting work. Her eyes often wandered away from it.

Often she begged silently for any respite from it.

Sometimes, like on that day, there was a knock on the door.

“Come in.” Daksha said.

Through the double doors, a small entourage of blonde-haired, blue-eyed and blue-dressed Helvetians arrived, accompanied by a single Ayvartan staffer from the SIVIRA. Chief among them was Larissa Finesse, a comely blond woman with a cold expression, dressed in a bright blue coat and fur cap that seemed utterly out of place in the Ayvartan spring. She arrived, nodded her head toward Daksha and stretched out a hand.

Daksha shook with her at arm’s length, briefly and with a face just as dispassionate.

“You look professional, Premier. I am pleased with how you’ve made up.” Larissa said.

“Are you here to flirt? I’m not interested.” Daksha replied with a grin.

Larissa turned up her nose and crossed her arms at the jab. “I am not predisposed toward older women; at any rate it is not flirting, but relevant to my purpose.”

“You know the city’s being shot at? I thought you’d have run farther north.”

“I am staying here.” Larissa said bluntly. “I’m not some lend-lease bean counter, I’m a diplomat, and Solstice is a diplomatic nexus. I am unafraid to remain, Premier.”

Daksha had to admit, she thought low of Larissa, and this was turning her around.

“I appreciate it. So, why have I been blessed with a visit from so fine a lady?”

Larissa narrowed her eyes.

“Now who’s flirting?”

Daksha chuckled. “I’m married now, you know.”

“That has never stopped anyone.”

“You’d know?”

Both women seemed to then become aware of the staffers staring at them.

“At any rate,” Larissa finally said. “Helvetia is on a war footing for the first time in many years, Premier, and the Helvetian people are still very ignorant of our allies. I wish to run a series of propaganda ads and filmed shorts on both you and Stahl. I want to sell you to the Helvetians, and in so doing, sell your nations to them to build confidence.”

“And you’re starting with me? Stalh would have flirted you all through the night.”

Daksha always had to get in the last barb. It was not altogether untrue; she took this line of attack because while Larissa made a career for herself shouting hoarse about what a tyrant Daksha Kansal was, the Premier knew foreign diplomats tended to mingle in their work. And there was no more bothersome libel than one which was partially true.

Some of the staffers chuckled, while Larissa closed her fists and glared daggers.

“Don’t tell her I said that.” Daksha winked. It was bad diplomacy, perhaps, but Helvetians were irksome, and also too beholden to Ayvartans now to be able to begrudge anything.

Larissa scoffed. “Behind the makeup and the suit you’re still a vulgar bandit, I see.”

Daksha raised a hand to her chest, in a mock girlish way. “Larissa, you’ll find I possess many qualities beloved by the Helvetians, starting with my sense of humor. Why, I am also a strong advocate of human rights, and a complete, unrepentant féministe.”

“Yes, well. Unfortunately, you will be allowed to make that rosy case.” Larissa said.

It was true that Daksha was still rowdy at heart, but she was a popular leader now.

To this effect, Daksha had changed just a little. She had her hair cut shorter, and she arranged it in a bun. She wore reading glasses, and even a bit of makeup. She felt like a strict school teacher, all prim and proper and dolled up. She wore the same uniform, but laden with impressive titles and awards that inspired confidence and served as evidence of her leadership skill. For once in her life, she was wearing her Hero of Socialist Labor medals. Her physical appearance had changed a little too. There were a few more lines of age creeping around her eyes, mouth and cheek, creasing the dark skin. Her hair was a little more white in places and less black in others. She was less fit; not lifting as much.

All part of her transformation into the metaphorical mother of the Ayvartan people.

Like Lena, she was to be a symbol of the motherland, a literal socialist mother.

Her wayward children were under her wing, protected, guided, provided for.

She received a starring role in posters and newsreels and other propaganda. In her customary uniform, with her hair in a bun and glasses on her face, looking sternly at cowards and thieves, smiling reassuringly at the injured, gazing solemnly at soldiers on the battlefield and grinning with delight at soldiers in battle performing heroic deeds. Premier Daksha Kansal: military leader, civilian star role model, and yes, mom to all.

Some of her propagandists went as far as to suggest she become a literal mother until she snapped and told them of both her lesbianism and the inability of even the notorious “gender miracle worker” Dr. Willhelmina Kappel to give a child to two sapphic women.

Despite the artifice, it was useful now that she had the eye of people beyond Ayvarta.

“I look forward to seeing what becomes of me once the footage is cut.” Daksha said.

“I’ve half a mind to edit them as I used to with my editorials on you. But I’ll be gentle.”

Larissa was hissing venomously now, which was music to Daksha’s ears.

“We should begin filming post-haste.” She said, once she had collected herself from her momentary anger at Daksha’s scandalous attacks. “Getting some war footage will show everyone the state of Solstice. They will be sympathetic and will cry with us for justice.”

Daksha lturned her head to get a quick glance at the state of the capital.

Since the “siege” of Solstice had begun it felt like the sky overhead was turning grey from all the shell smoke. Solstice was changing. It was becoming hardened to this state of war. Looking through the glass leading to the balcony, Daksha could see the sky and much of Solstice’s skyline stretching out below. Armaments Hill was one of the highest points in Solstice, and the city flowed outside that window like the texture on a complex painting, the bumps of millions of small houses, the sharp, thick thrusts of the city’s few ‘scrapers, ten and twenty stories tall, the deft twists of the brush that created roads, and the walls, the massive walls that protected them all, stone giants in the horizon standing sentinel.

Solstice was enduring a pounding today, but all of those trails in the sky that signified war, were also emblematic of resistance. They were fighting; and yet undefeated.

In that, Solstice had not changed. It was still The Invincible City in the red desert.

And Daksha had to make sure that it remained as such.

“Very well. But I’m waiting for the results of an attack. I should have them soon–”

Before Larissa had a chance to hear her defer the meeting, the double doors opened suddenly and without a knock for a rather mismatched pair of folk Daksha did not remember ever meeting. Larissa gave them a quizzical look as they walked up to Daksha’s desk, and bowed their heads together. She and her staff stood aside. Man and woman, but it was clear they had no connection. He was a Helvetian, blonde-haired, blue-eyed; blue uniformed, too. An older man with groomed facial hair and a beret.

She was a young woman, perhaps around Madiha’s age, svelte and fit, her skin a light tan, her green eyes folded in the way characteristic to easterners. Likely Kitanese, she was fairly tall, long-limbed, elegant, mature. She dressed in a refined, sleeveless shirt that resembled the top half of a mandarin gown, along with a pair of tight silk trousers and cloth shoes, all a resplendent green. Her hair was cut above the shoulder, brown and loose but fine and groomed, her bangs swept so as not to cover her eyes and the rearmost locks of her hair flared ever so slightly up, like a bird’s raised tail feathers.

“Premier, it is an honor.” said the man. “And Lady Larissa, I did not expect to see you, I apologize, but I am fresh off the boat as I can be. I am Captain Hayter Durand of the Helvetian Naval Expeditionary Forces: East. I am glad I could make it here so quickly. When I heard Solstice was under attack, I feared the worst. Sorry about the short notice.”

Daksha chuckled. “It was such short notice that I wasn’t notified at all.” She said.

At Durand’s side the girl raised a delicate hand to her painted lips and laughed.

Larissa glared at Durand, and especially seemed to target his rank insignia.

“Excuse me, Premier, Lady.” Durand said. “I spoke with the war counsel, Chakma–”

“It’s fine, you’re here now.” Daksha said, quickly and bluntly. “I’m interested in why a Helvetian would leave the Eastern theater for the South, and especially why he would be in a hurry to meet in this besieged city. You are a long way from your post, Captain.”

“Yes, we would all like some explanation.” Larissa said, in a deliberate, venomous tone.

“Apologies. I was part of the task force assigned to transfer manpower requested from Helvetian commands to the Golden Army for Lend Lease.” Durand said. “As per the terms of the Pact. The Helvetian Expeditionary Corps has been fighting for some time already, but, Helvetia promised you an army, and we have delivered the rest of that army today.”

Durand nodded with a smile toward the young woman, and she bowed her head.

“I am Yanyu Zhuge, commander of the Kitanese 8th Route Army.” She said.

Yanyu spoke in a way that almost magic. Her voice was lovely, for sure, but it was the easy, fluent way with which she handled Ayvartan that was most captivating of all. It reminded her of when Madiha spoke foreign languages. It was almost as if she was not saying anything foreign, but instead was simply being understood no matter her speech.

There was an air of refinement and a breezy regality to her that was quite stunning.

“Zhuge, the star of the Kitanese communists. I’ve heard of your exploits.” Larissa said.

She crossed her arms and continued to glance between icily Durand and Yanyu.

Daksha blinked and looked over the girl. “I see. You’re far from home also, comrade.”

Yanyu crossed her arms over her breast and smiled easily at Daksha.

“Premier, it is because I recognize this is the true battleground of world communism.”

Durand seemed to shudder at the concept, but he aired none of his thoughts on it.

Larissa’s expression remained unchanged.

For Yanyu it seemed natural, every word she said. In fact, she seemed subtly eager.

“Your homeland is facing its own communist struggle. I don’t know that I can in good conscience accept your forces here, while your homes and comrades are in danger.”

Daksha did not really mean that. She would take any forces she could get. Not out of desperation, at least not yet, but to stack the deck. Every rifle was a good rifle where she stood. However, she wanted to test Yanyu. She wanted her to say something revealing. Daksha had little contact with the Kitan Red Guards since their inception. She had sent nominal aid, along with Svechtha, but both countries wanted to lay low on the world stage, and openly stoking the flames of Kitanese civil war seemed a fool move then.

She wondered whether Yanyu held a grudge. Whether Yanyu had an agenda here.

Perhaps it was because she just got done talking to a snake like Larissa, but Daksha was skeptical of this development. The Helvetians, bringing communists here to her? And Larissa seemed surprised and vexed by this. Surely this kind of thing was her doing?

Waiting for her answer, Daksha watched as Yanyu put on a cheerful, girlish smile.

It was a smile that reminded her eerily of another little daughter of the revolution.

It broke, momentarily, that air of reserved, mature, empress-like determination.

However, her words were just as easy, just as fluent as ever, even in that girlish voice.

“Premier, should communism fall in Ayvarta, it would have no hope in Yu. We read books from you and Lena Ulyanova in our schools in the mountains of southern Kitan. Nationalist tyrants burn your books as they burn our villages; Hanwan imperialists do the same. We have our own words and concepts and ideas, and our own identity as communists, and so we are aware that we cannot suffer the loss of Ayvarta. Our words aren’t being burned. Kitanese communism is patient and well-guarded. Do not worry.”

Daksha felt almost moved. Some part of her was still on its tiptoes, claws ready, subtly wondering if she was being deliberately disarmed. Yanyu looked completely innocent. She was telling the truth, Daksha thought. She believed, like Madiha believed. She talked like that girl did. Raised on the red books, selfless in sacrificing herself for other’s sake.

She glanced at Larissa, who in turn closed her eyes and seemed to take a step back.

“Very well. So this army is part of the forces Helvetia promised.” Daksha said. For now she had to hold back her latent drive to praise and cheer the young, and remain neutral toward Yanyu. Instead she addressed Durand again. “However, Kitan has never been part of the Pact agreements, since its recognized government is unwilling to speak with a communist nation. So I must ask where Helvetia stands on using the Kitanese for this.”

“I would comment, but it seems I have been circumvented.”

“I apologize, Lady Larissa. This was part of the wishes of the Kitanese under Helvetia’s charge, and a decision of the Helvetian GQG.” Durand then turned to Daksha. “There’s not just Kitanese people in this army, Premier. Lady Zhuge should explain this–”

Yanyu joined in. “A sizable part of the 8th Route Army are communist volunteers from other parts of the world. Communists from every continent are among us: Aglians, Ayvartans, Borelians, Yuans, Occideans, and even a battalion of Nochtish communists.”

“So Helvetia started a volunteer drive for us?” Daksha asked.

Larissa openly and disdainfully shrugged.

“Negative, Premier.” Yanyu said. “These were people inspired to fight for Kitan based on their own convictions. Many have fought imperialism for a decade now. They organized among themselves and decided to leave when the 8th Route Army left Kitan and came to fight here. Not all of them ascribe to our views. Some are liberals, I’m sorry to say; some are anarchists; and so on. But they have traveled with the struggle for longer than I.”

“So they’re irregulars.” Daksha replied, a bit coldly. That detail mattered, and she was not as happy to have received from Helvetia a dozen battalions of ragtag fools with a poor materialist analysis of the world as opposed to a modern Chasseur division or three. Was it not lady Tsung herself who said to struggle against liberalism? This was disappointing.

“Don’t worry!” Yanyu waved her hands in front of herself as if to dismiss the concern. “We’re all disciplined and we will follow your rules. Besides, the volunteers are only one division and I’ve got three. My reliable Red Guards compose the other two divisions.”

Had Daksha never met Madiha before, Yanyu would have looked ridiculous, a girl not even out of her twenties talking about her divisions like she knew what war was. However, Madiha and her entire warring generation existed. This was their war, a war that young people fought and led in. Yanyu felt like her country’s miracle worker.

Which made Daksha feel almost guilty when she decided then and there to keep her.

“Alright, I appreciate the aid, Yanyu Zhuge. It is an honor to have you here.”

“Premier, do not thank me yet. I have not yet been useful to you, and furthermore, I lend my aid in part because I would like to ask a favor of you.” Yanyu said. “And I believe Mr. Durand’s GQG friends have a favor to ask from you also. You are welcome to decline.”

Daksha blinked, and leaned forward, steepling her fingers once more. “I am listening.”

“I would like to meet Madiha Nakar.” Yanyu said, her voice suddenly serious.

“That’s all? You could have met her for free. She’s like my daughter.” Daksha said.

Yanyu looked a little surprised and a bit red in the face and averted her eyes.

“Lady Larissa, and Premier Kansal.” Durand said with a more serious air than before. “My message from Army GQG is this. Helvetia is right now fighting the Nochtish forces in the Arctic ring and we are also preparing for land invasions of Mauricia and Afarland. We hope to be in Lubon in a year’s time. We absolutely require Ayvarta’s help in creating another front, this one in Kitan and the far eastern sea, if Solstice survives the year.”

Daksha tapped her fingers together in the steeple. This was sudden.

It would not be the last sudden thing that day.

Before Larissa could vent her growing outrage at this demand and her lack of a role in its inception, and before Daksha could say even a word in response, the air in the room grew very still and thin. All sounds they wanted to emit were then stifled and quenched.

In front of them, Yanyu’s eyes glowed.

Green rings appeared around her irises, and she seemed to shake in place.

“She’s coming.” Yanyu said, as if in a trance. “Madiha’s in danger.”

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