The 3rd Superweapon (69.3)

This scene contains violence and death, and an experience of dysphoria.

Loose stones began to shake and rattle atop the ruin, trembling with the ground.

“Gulab, the Vishap is approaching. Good luck. I love you.”

She almost muttered the last sentence.

“No luck, just skill! I love you too, Charvi!”

Gulab was loud about it as usual.

She switched the radio frequency on the portable talkie and put it in her pouch.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to steel herself for what was to come.

It was just like hunting the rock bears, she told herself.

But even that gone poorly for her in the past.

Atop the mound of rubble that was once the first gate of the Conqueror’s Way, the approaching Vishap was like a boulder rolling down from the mountains, like an avalanche of metal. Sergeant Gulab Kajari tried to find more homely metaphors to describe what she was seeing, but without embellishment, it was a gigantic tank with a big gun pointed directly at them. Its dauntless trundling kicked up clouds of sand, and the infantry at its sides looked minuscule in comparison. It was easy to forget them.

She was surrounded by people who could not afford for her to overlook anything.

She sighed internally, smiled outwardly, and pointed at the incoming Vishap.

“Troops, I’ve got nothing here to say but: we gotta kill that thing.” Gulab said.

Loubna and Aditha and the rest of the rookies in the squadron cast eyes at the floor. They were huddled atop the mound, half their bodies on the steep end away from the approaching Vishap, looking over the makeshift hill. They were hidden from the enemy, hoping to ambush them as they neared. In their hands they had submachine guns and rifles, useless against armor, and one their belts they had anti-tank grenades. Though small, these could at least fare better than a rifle round against the heavy tank.

There was more to it than that, but Gulab didn’t have the time to catch everybody up on everything the General hurriedly told her over the field telephone. Even Gulab herself thought she had not caught all of it. But she had to somehow make all of it work out.

“Trust me, I’ve hunted bigger!” Gulab said. “We just have to know when to run away.”

She pounded her fist against her chest and put on a proud expression.

Morale did not improve upon hearing such a thing with the Vishap in the background.

“Why isn’t it shooting?” Loubna asked. Everyone was watching the machine breathlessly.

Gulab cast her eyes at the approaching tank. She remembered some of the things she had learned from Adesh Gurunath about cannons, in the various times they had cooperated during the war. Longer cannons could shoot farther, and their shots flew faster; the larger the hole of the cannon, from which it ejected shells, the stronger and larger the ammunition was. The Vishap’s cannon was very short and stubby, though the bore was wider than most of the guns Gulab had seen on tanks. It was mounted on the front face of the tank and seemed unable to swivel or turn, since it had no turret to move with.

“I don’t think it can shoot this high, and I don’t think it’s in range yet.” Gulab said.

There were a few sighs of relief among the assembled soldiers, but the trundling of the machine nearing them seemed to put into doubt whether it had any weakness at all.

As the Vishap approached the bridge, the machine noise that accompanied it grew louder, but it strangely enough began to slow down a tick, as it neared closer to 1000 meters from the Conqueror’s Way. Then from around the Vishap’s flanks rushed enemy riflemen, charging across the open desert. Gulab raised her hand at the sight and silently ordered her squadron to huddle closer to the ground and to hide themselves.

Within minutes the enemy riflemen were jumping over the rubble and onto the bridge itself ahead of the machine. A squadron of foot Cissean soldiers was in the lead, and several more followed them. They were armed with rifles and bayonets and quickly left the cover of the rocks. Boldly, they started across the open space to the first gate ruin.

This was good fortune for Gulab’s team; they had to pose a credible threat to the enemy.

And while Gulab doubted she could even dent the Vishap, she knew she could kill men.

“Fire on mark; Loubna, sweep the left flank, everyone else aim at the right.” Gulab said.

“Are these guys related to the men before? Don’t they know we’re here?” Aditha asked.

“I don’t think so. I think they’ve been lost in the desert for longer.” Gulab replied.

“So it’s an ambush?”

“That’s the plan.”

In truth, it was General Nakar who thought that, but Gulab nonetheless took the credit.

It was important for the kids to look up to her!

Aditha did not seem impressed, but she did focus back on the enemy with steeled eyes.

Loubna prepared her partially concealed light machine gun, facing the approach she was to cover; Gulab checked her Rasha submachine gun for one final time before cocking it and setting it on a stone for stability. Squadron members with basic Bundu rifles set them on the rocks, partially hidden, taking impromptu sniping positions across the ruin.

Gulab drew in a breath and aimed for the men running toward the mound.

“Mark!”

Gulab briefly raised her fist, and then laid it down, finger on the trigger, and fired.

Her squadron quickly followed suit.

Tracer fire sailed from atop the rubble of the first gate and showered the advancing enemy infantry. It was almost a moment of deja vu as Gulab watched the men struck down mid-run as if they weren’t expecting to be shot, and their compatriots clinging to the nearest piece of rubble for cover, or running back to the Vishap. Automatic fire from the submachine guns and Loubna’s Danava viciously covered the approach, and a dozen men were killed almost simultaneously before the rest took the hint and scattered.

As the waves of enemy infantry grew timid they began to concentrate around the Vishap.

There was only one way Gulab could account for this behavior among enemy soldiers.

They had caught them by surprise! It was just as General Nakar had predicted; they had not been in contact with the Republic of Ayvarta troops that had attacked this position previously. These new arrivals with the Vishap group likely expected an ambush but could not have known its ferocity or character, because they were acting independently of the main body of RoA troops deployed to take the Conqueror’s Way. As such, like the RoA troops defeated before them, these Cisseans and Nochtish were taken by surprise.

“Hah! Trekking through the desert melted their brains! Pick them off!” Gulab shouted.

Loubna reloaded, and she began to fire on the enemy’s cover selectively. Gulab praised her discipline and began to fire upon a sited spot herself. A few men tried to contort themselves with their rifles around the chunks of rock and from out the pits and trenches that scarred the Conqueror’s Way, but to no avail. Every time a rifle came out, a stream of bullets from atop the remains of the first gate silenced it. More and more of the enemy appeared and consolidated in thick formations behind cover, but without any cover down the middle Way they could not approach the mound. They were pinned.

For a moment, it seemed almost like they had turned back the tide. The enemy had advanced, lost men, retreated a step, and become bogged down in relentless gunfire.

This was all part of the General’s plan! It was all working as she had said.

In any other situation such a stalemate could be exploited. Gulab had seen it before.

However, there was nothing the bullets could do to stop the Vishap, ever closing-in.

It was this detail that made this battle different, and rendered this triumph so null.

Soon as its tracks hit the stone of the Conqueror’s Way, the Vishap changed the tide of the battle. It ground rocks beneath its bulk, and shoved rubble away with the bulldozer on its face, and its own men leaped out of its way as it charged forward. But once it moved past their positions, the Cisseans took up its back and began to advance again. Though the mound continued to brutalize the Conqueror’s Way with submachine gun, rifle and machine gun fire, there was nothing they could do. All manner and caliber of small arms fire was bouncing harmlessly off the Vishap’s blades and its wounded front plate armor.

“It’s not doing anything!” Aditha shouted, rapping the trigger of her rifle uselessly.

“Keep shooting! Wait for my signal before doing anything more!” Gulab shouted back.

Trundling to within a stark 500 meters of the first gate, the Vishap’s cannon glowed.

Smoke and fire belched from the aperture, and with a terrifying growl the Vishap loosed a heavy shell that flew in a belabored, shallow arc into the bottom of the mound. There was a monumental flash. Fire and metal and chunks of rock flew straight into the air in front of the defender’s very eyes. Everything shook under them. It felt like the mound would collapse. The Vishap moved once more, and it loomed larger and larger as it did.

Atop the machine, two of the shoulder cupolas turned to face the mound, and the dark slits cut across the sides of the structures flashed a bright green. Hundreds of rounds of machine gun fire struck the rubble at the peak of the mound, and a cacophonous sawing noise sounded above the shifting of the stones and the sound of loading and firing of rifles. Hundreds of bright green tracers bounced skyward or overflew the peak. Even the rookies could identify the sound as that of the deadly Norgler machine gun, and they scrambled back from the rubble, putting the slope between them and the Vishap.

The Vishap’s top-mounted machine guns blazed as the machine crawled toward the mound. It was like a demon, belching fire from its snout-like cannon, its cupolas like eyes firing searing, chaotic beams of green tracer ammunition. It was a terrifying sight that cowed the defenders like nothing else. Not another shot flew out from atop the mound; Gulab swallowed hard and shrank back with the rest of her squadron, pinned.

“Comrades, get ready to retreat! Grab your weapon and start moving toward–”

Beneath the infernal noise of the machine guns the Vishap’s cannon cried out once more.

One more shell impacted the rubble of the first gate, and this time the force of the blast wound itself inside the rubble, and rocks and concrete belched out the other side of the mound, collapsing some of the rookies’ own footholds on the rear of the slope. Several squadron members were blown back with the rock, and they dropped from the mound and hit the ground. Disoriented, but alive, they fled in a panic back to the second gate.

There was no time to hold the Vishap there. They had to sacrifice the first gate and fast.

“Comrades, over the side barriers, right now!” Gulab shouted. “Come with me!”

Everyone looked at her with surprise. They clung on to the rubble and rock as if they were suspended over a precipice, and their guns were almost an afterthought, hanging by belt loops or pressed between them and the slope. Nobody was moving at all.

“Come on!”

Gulab grabbed hold of rookie Loubna with one hand, who was paralyzed with her Danava embraced in her arms, and the sweating, panting Aditha with the other. Finding purchase on a solid slab of concrete beneath her, Gulab could afford to let go of the mound for this maneuver, and with all her strength, she dragged the two rookies, and leaped from the mound and atop the side-barrier. She pushed Loubna and Aditha off, and it looked to everyone as if she was throwing them in the river. There was no splashing or screaming, however, if any such thing could even be audible under all the machine gun fire; and witnessing Gulab herself disappearing behind the barriers, the remainder of the squadron gasped with collective fear and charged toward the water.

Jumping around the meter-and-a-half tall concrete barriers on the side of the bridge, Gulab found herself in a drainage segment off the side of the bridge. There was maybe a meter in which to stand or sit, and the rushing waters of the Qural below. Loubna and Aditha clung to the barrier, terrified by the rushing water. Gulab urged them to move; in a moment, five additional squadron members would jump the barrier and land messily one after the other, some nearly falling into the river. Gulab got everyone organized.

She huddled the group and addressed them. “Alright, see, nobody fell, nobody got–”

Behind them, there was a much louder blast and an even more violent rumbling and rattling as the Vishap finally destroyed the mound of the first gate. Then, the grinding of its tracks and the roaring of its engine resumed, and they could all feel it moving past them, like a dragon stomping its way past their village as they hid from the destruction.

Gulab had no intention to remain hidden. This was all another chance to attack.

“Comrades, any hunter can kill any beast by stopping it from moving! If that thing gets past the second gate, it will have a clear shot at the wall. We can’t let it get any further.”

All of her squadron was clearly shaken. In a span of minutes they had lost a position, lost comrades, and witnessed head-on a massive tank bearing down on them. Their eyes were watering, their faces sweating and turning pale, their bodies shaking. But they were focused: Gulab saw it in their faces that they understood the urgency. That was good; a soldier could be afraid, but they had to channel that fear into their survival.

“On my mark,” Gulab continued, and laid a hand on Aditha’s shoulder, and quickly explained as the Vishap neared them, “Aditha and Seer will throw frag grenades at the road to distract the riflemen, and then, me, Loubna, Fareeha and Jaffar will rise up and throw anti-tank grenades at the tank’s side and tracks. We only have one shot at this!”

Aditha looked frightened at first, but Loubna put a hand on her shoulder too, and her face turned red. She averted her eyes, turned her cheek on Loubna and withdrew a pair of grenades from her pouch. Looking sour in expression, she nodded silently to the team, most of whom seemed perplexed by her behavior. Meanwhile Fareeha, a tall, dark, athletic woman, and Jaffar, a rugged-looking boy, both gave Gulab intense looks that suggested to her their eagerness to fight. Both were rookies. Everyone here was now.

Gulab didn’t look at Loubna, she felt she didn’t need to. Loubna was ready. Gulab felt it. Loubna was big and tough, and she had a soft heart that yearned to defend the weak.

She saw her own face in Loubna’s, like staring into her reflection on the mountain ice.

She hoped she could count on at least her.

Behind them, the Vishap chewed up the remaining rubble of the first gate, and the ground beneath them and the barrier in front of them and seemingly even the water at their backs, all of it shook and shuddered with the weight and power of the beast. It fired a round at the ruined second gate, resulting in a massive explosion, and its machine guns screamed as it engaged the blocking position set up around the second gate’s remains

Gulab’s stomach vibrated, and she felt the presence of the machine in her neck when she tried to speak, like constant jolt to the adam’s apple. Her words came out shaken.

The Vishap was within zero of the squadron; they had to attack now or never.

Its frontal machine guns were occupied, and its gun was unable to target them.

It was time.

“Aditha, Seer, now!”

Aditha and Seer pulled the pins on their grenades, waited a second, and threw.

Four grenades, one in each hand, landed in the road and exploded in various directions.

Gulab stood and launched her AT grenade in as straight a throw as she could muster.

Only on a direct hit from the head would the grenade be primed and detonated.

She caught sight of something that made her throat seize up.

The Vishap had an armored skirt protecting its wheels and track.

Would the attack even be effective?

She watched the grenade strike the top of the skirt at an angle and burn a visible hole.

The Vishap trundled on.

On the road were dead and wounded riflemen, caught out by the grenades.

Their own comrades were coming in for them.

Just then, behind Gulab, in a sluggish sequence, came Loubna, Jaffar and Fareeha.

Their own throws were haphazard, with Jaffar throwing from the grenade’s head and Loubna lobbing hers. Both grenades exploded over the armor skirt and left minor cosmetic wounds on the tank. Fareeha seemed to have had the best throw. Her grenade hit the Vishap in the side of the skirt and burnt through the armor, exposing a wheel. Some smoke and fire spat out of the wound, but the Vishap continued to advance.

“Everyone down!” Gulab shouted. They had stood out too long, threw too late–

Atop the Vishap, the leftmost rear cupola turned to the edge barriers and opened fire.

Alarming green norgler fire sprayed over the concrete.

Gulab shoved herself into Loubna and Jaffar, the two closest, and brought them down.

Seemingly hundreds of rounds struck the concrete, chipping away bits and pieces that fell over the squadron and casting concrete dust into the air. So many rounds were fired at the barrier that the chipped concrete dust formed a small cloud over the edge of the bridge. Disdainfully the Vishap pressed on, fully leaving behind Gulab and her team.

On the floor, Gulab pressed her hands over herself and found no wounds.

She grabbed hold of Loubna, who was staring at something mouth agape.

She was unwounded too; Jaffar was also alright from the looks him, and then–

Just a few steps away from them, sitting with her back to a black-red smear on the barrier, was Fareeha. Her chest and neck had bled out heavily in moments, judging by the red stain all around her, like an aura burnt into the ground and wall. Her feet dangled from the bridge, and her eyes were open, staring endlessly out into the water.

She was dead.

Gulab hadn’t been able to knock her down too.

From behind Gulab sounded a heart-rending cry.

“Fareeha! No! No!”

Aditha, crouched on the floor, held back a thrashing, screaming Seer, whose black face was turning pale and flushed, her eyes red and strained, weeping. She tried to claw over Gulab to make it to Fareeha’s corpse, and Aditha and Loubna both tried to hold her back. She was screaming for Fareeha, screaming that she could not be left behind, that she could not stay here, that she would be fine if they could get her out of this place.

Gulab looked back at the corpse as if, mindlessly, trying to assess whether it could be ok.

It could not.

She pored over, in that eternal instant where anxiety reigns over the mind, whether she had seen anyone die before. She had seen people die, but had they died? There was an importance difference there that she felt but could not grasp. Certainly, nobody had died under her command before. Because she had not really done that much commanding.

Now, she was in command. And a young woman of merely eighteen had died under her.

In the background to all this, was Solstice city, and Gulab stared at the wall.

She felt the Vishap, attacking the second gate. She felt its motion through the ground.

Gulab turned toward Seer and grabbed hold of her shoulders and shook her roughly.

“An entire city of millions of defenseless people will join Fareeha if we don’t do something, Private Dbouji! Wait to mourn until we’re inside some safe walls!”

She picked up her submachine gun from the floor, crawled past Loubna and Jaffar, and without turning back, motioned for everyone to follow. She hated all of this, and herself.

She hated how much it felt like something her father had done and said to her, long ago.

How much that voice sounded like his own.

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The 3rd Superweapon (69.2)

This scene contains violence.

48th of the Lilac’s Bloom, 2031 D.C.E

Ayvarta, Solstice — East Wall Defensive Line

“All guns, site the enemy tank and open fire on approach!”

Ferried across the desert by four tank transporters, the massive steel crate dropped its front door open like a ramp onto the sand, and from the aperture escaped an enormous tank, easily larger than any tank Madiha Nakar had ever seen. It was wider and thicker than an Ogre or a Giant, with a track that must’ve reached twelve wheels in length.

Its front surface was sloped and seemed thick, and it carried an additional steel plate of bulldozer blades. in the middle of the glacis, a thick round mount surrounded a short-barreled howitzer or mortar that must have been at least 150mm bore. There were several structures on its flat, long upper surface that seemed like cupola, but only one was centralized and likely to be used for command. All of the others were located on the corners and it was possible to make out tiny barrels sticking out of them: machine guns.

Painted black all over, its designation was emblazoned on its side: the “Vishap.”

Cutting in between the hilly dunes that had kept it out of sight of the wall, the beast revealed itself in full to the defenders, and made clear its intentions. At the highest speed the gargantuan tank could muster with its weight on the treacherous sand, it was making ponderously for the Conqueror’s Way. Men in Cissean and Nochtish uniforms charged alongside it, rifles in hand, barely keeping pace with the grinding march of the machine.

Atop the walls, the rampart gunners hurried back to their posts, and found the Vishap on their direct-fire optics. Madiha Nakar and Parinita Maharani surveyed the proceedings as the crews began turning wheels and pulling levers to get the guns moved. By adjusting the height of the gun mounting itself, they could make up for the lack of negative elevation on the 76mm all-purpose gun, and fire over the wall at targets far below.

At the General’s order, a dozen 76mm guns on the ramparts opened fire on the Vishap. Each impact was near invisibly distant and sounded dull and almost unreal, as if the artillery of a battle a world away. Smoke obscured the machine after the first red-hot tracer impacted the hull and exploded. Shells fell around it a dozen every few seconds, throwing sand into the air, billowing dust and fire; it was impossible to confirm any hits.

However, in the light of the rising afternoon sun it was possible to see the shadow, continuing to lumber, and once the last shell had exploded, the sound of the roaring, grinding engine was still perfectly audible. From the cloud of dust and sand, the Vishap crawled out, undaunted. Its front surface was pitted and pockmarked and in places cracked, and one of the bulldozer blades had been blasted off. Some of the front track guard and the armored skirt covering its wheels had been damaged, but not too badly.

“Madiha, take a closer a look at it, I think there’s something odd about its armor.”

Parinita handed Madiha the binoculars, and set down a radio unit, hidden behind the rampart stones. She took up a radio headset and began to make calls to Solstice for support, while the General honed in on the Vishap’s front and surveyed the damage.

Over, around and between the bulldozer blades, the armor plate was the thickest, and insignificant damage seemed to have been dealt to it. However, the form that damaged took was confounding. There were deep, uneven cracks, and dusty bruises, and no deformation from the heat whatsoever. Armor this dense could crack, but not in the way this material was cracking. It looked like a brick wall that had been suddenly hit with a sledgehammer, not a sheet of metal that had deformed under intense, prolonged heat.

“It’s concrete. It’s got to be. They put a layer of concrete armor over the tank.”

Madiha was perplexed, but it made sense. Anti-tank shells were designed specifically to defeat metal armor that would resist the pointed nose of the shell, and deform around the packed-in explosive charge, in very specific ways. It was meant to go through 50 to 70 millimeters of metal armor, not through a centimeter or more of concrete cement.

“Do we have anti-bunker or anti-concrete available for the 76mm?” Madiha asked.

Parinita shook her head despondently, waving to the city behind them.

“No, we’re not stocked with those. Those are special-assignment for assault troops.”

Madiha looked over her shoulder. She was so focused on the battle ahead, that she hardly had taken any time to look at what she was protecting. Always, behind her every shout, her every shot, Solstice waited at her back. It was a vast city, its few tall buildings visible in the distance, but mostly composed of small, flat-roofed brown buildings, either made of clay or textured to look like it. All kinds of colorful awnings hung over porches and balconies to help the inhabitants get some air while beating the oppressive heat. Winding roads and numerous labyrinthine alleyways characterized a city that grew, organically and haphazardly, for thousands of years. It was beautiful; and most of her troops were there. They awaited orders to counterattack a sizable divisional force.

“Focus artillery fire on the supporting infantry!” Madiha turned back around and shouted at her rampart gunners, and they began to coordinate among themselves and to lob shells at the encroaching enemy battalion. She then turned back to Parinita, and to the desert ahead. “Let the Vishap come. How’s our air support? That flat roof is the weakest part of the whole thing, it has to be. We can order a strike from Vulture.”

Parinita shook her head, pulling off her headset and hitting a switch on the radio. “That’s what I thought so too, but I just got off the airwaves with Air Command. Vulture and the other air units are split between supporting the western defenses, interdicting incoming raids on Solstice, and launching their own long-range air attacks. It’s mostly Elves who are trying to come after us at this point, with token Nochtish support, but if we can break through these attacks, we may be able to inflict some damage on the Elven navy.”

“So the air force gets to launch a counteroffensive, but the Army has to sit and wait.”

Madiha grumbled. Parinita shrugged and rationally replied, “There’s no Lines in the sky.”

“We’ll have to make do then. Release the vanguard rifle battalion onto the bridge to fight. I’ll come up with a battle plan as we go.” Madiha said. “Get the drawbridge gate open.”

“Roger. Contacting the drawbridge engineers and the 7th Battalion now.” Parinita said.

Minutes later, the Eastern gate of Solstice began to drop, accompanied by the chunky sound of a motor. It was a drawbridge door that no longer presided over a gap in the bridge, perhaps thirty meters tall and a little less wide, now powered by diesel motors and held by heavy anchor chains and gears. Behind the door waited nearly a thousand ready soldiers of the 7th Battalion, who had deployed all along the road inside the city as a rapid response force. Slowly the door began to angle, and a crack developed at the top where the light of the desert peered into the structure of the Solstice gate threshold.

There was an abrupt crash, and the slackening chains went rigid and tense.

Smoke began to spread from the gatehouse out into the threshold tunnel.

Between the booming of the rampart guns, Madiha heard the gears grind down below.

She peered carefully over the rampart and found the gate at a steep angle.

“Parinita, what is happening?” Madiha asked.

Parinita turned from the radio box and faced Madiha, alarmed.

“Something’s happened to the gate mechanism. It’s stuck part of the way.” She said.

Madiha blinked hard and covered her face with her hands.

It was always something!

“Sergeant Agni is asking permission to blow off the chains and–”

“Absolutely not.” Madiha said. “Should that gate fall Nocht will not give us a respite to properly repair it. We can’t afford for any of the gates to stay open unnecessarily.”

“Then what do we do?” Parinita asked, pulling off the radio headset.

Madiha looked down over the ramparts as the Vishap’s tracks hit stone for the first time.

“I’m calling the bridge by field telephone. Tell Agni to get the engineers and some of the Svecthans with Mountain training ready to go over the wall. As soon as possible!”

Parinita nodded her head and returned to the radio box.

Meanwhile, the General produced the field telephone from behind one of the ramparts. Cable had been laid down to the bridge long ago, and much of it had survived the bombings. She picked up the handset, hit a switch, and immediately called down.

“Sergeant Kajari, listen closely to me.”

Ayvarta, Solstice Desert — Conqueror’s Way Approach

Brigadier General Gaul Von Drachen watched the Vishap go with a sense of minor, quiet amusement. After the machine trundled out of its carriage, he ordered a company of his lead men to chase after it. Rifles in hand, sweating profusely, the riflemen followed his orders and charged after the machine. They had been following it for what seemed like weeks, out in the brutal heat of the Solstice desert, and now they trampled over the sand and made to move ahead of it. There were no words of protest or complaint from them.

“You don’t want to hear it, but I’m taking full credit for this delivery.” Von Drachen said.

At his side, Major General Rodrick Von Fennec scoffed and stamped past him. He was a square-shaped man, with a brick of a head, beefy limbs, but an older, stiffer, and bowing stature than that of the younger, more limber Von Drachen. His remaining eye glanced at Von Drachen with disdain; the other was patched up but likely sported similar scorn. Somewhere under his thick white beard, Fennec’s lips were probably turned up as well. For a louplander, his tail was very stubby and short, and it barely wagged; his ears, poking out from under his desert helmet, were also blunt, and just barely fuzzy.

Von Drachen thought they could commiserate over using fake names, but Von Fennec was instantly hostile to him, even though he went along with Von Drachen’s genius plan.

“Yes, yes, to be frank, only you could have been crazy enough to suggest such a course of action. I will give you full credit for the penetration of the enemy line through the unguarded desert sector; also responsibility for the 100 men who died along the way.”

Von Fennec snorted and put on a confident grin as though he had crushed Von Drachen.

Von Drachen, in turn, shrugged his shoulders. “They knew what they signed up for. I care about the living and I will achieve victory for the dead. All of my men know about this.”

At this callousness, or perhaps more at Von Drachen’s lack of reaction to what should have been a harsh indictment, Von Fennec turned his cheek and grumbled inaudibly.

As the Generals amicably conversed, all of the unit’s strength rallied around the Vishap. All that could be taken along the Vishap on the desert trek, was a light rifle battalion and some stray elements of tank and motor units. Behind Von Drachen, the camouflaged tank transporters, unburdened of the tank’s weight, retreated back behind the dunes, tugging behind them the massive crate-like object that once housed the Vishap inside it.

A few token escort tanks, “Rick Hunter” pattern with 76mm guns, drove past, crawling their way out of the hilly dunes separating them from the battlespace, using the last of their fuel and the last endurance of their tracks and suspensions to make it within visual range of the wall and bridge. Divided into platoons of 50 men, the Vishap’s infantry escort formed an arrowhead with the machine and a few men at the head of the pack.

“So Von Fennec, what’s preventing this operation from being bombed to pieces?”

Von Drachen glanced at Von Fennec from the corner of his eyes.

Von Fennec snorted and laughed.

“Take a gander at that sand dune over there, and feast your eyes.”

Von Drachen looked over his shoulder, half-interested. Atop a nearby boulder, to which the sand dunes formed a neat little ramp, a trio of tanks with extensive modications raised twin anti-aircraft guns into the air from open-top turrets. All of them were likely based on the new Rick Hunter light tank types, which were just barely nudging the “medium” category in armor and weight, but had great speed. Open-top turrets allowed the the new M3A3s to mount much larger weapons than the old M3s and M5s, and despite lessened survivability they grew to replace the little sluggers in large numbers.

“We call it the M8 R-K Peacekeeper. Any Ayvartan ground attack craft that closes in to the Vishap will be shredded by 18 rounds a second of high-explosive anti-aircraft fire.”

“I see.” Von Drachen said. “So what prevents those things from being bombed?”

“Shut up, Von Drachen. Do something with yourself. Go talk to Aatto or something.”

“Oh, I plan to. Not talk to Aatto; she’s nice, but I have business with a lady at the front.”

“Excuse me?”

At this point, as if on cue, a utility car pulled up behind them. It was driven by the old Cissean colonel, Gutierrez, who looked exhausted behind the wheel, and on its bed, was carrying air tanks and flexible suits, rope and hooks, and other seemingly random pieces of equipment for some nondescript purpose. A squadron of fifteen men sat around on the back of the truck, squeezed between the equipment and looking most unhappy.

“You’re about to fall for Nakar’s trap and I’m about to get you out of it.” Von Drachen said.

Von Fennec looked livid. “What do you mean? There is nothing Madiha Nakar can do now! Our only difficulty was getting the Vishap here. It is going to walk right through the Conqueror’s Way, and cut a path for us! Reinforcements can follow the desert behind us; once the gate is breached, the battle in the northeast can be ignored for this purpose.”

Von Drachen shook his head. He could see where all this was going. He had been there before. “Here is what will happen. Madiha Nakar will put up a stiff resistance that will endanger the Vishap and cause you to commit more forces to push the Vishap forward. This will force you to consolidate your troops into a large, dense formation. She will retreat, and you will think you’ve won, and you’ll charge your big, dense attack group deeper into the bridge. Then, she will surround it and find some way to destroy it, inflicting disproportionate casualties on you because of the density of your unit.”

“Absolutely not! There’s no way to surround anything on that bridge!” Von Fennec said. His face was red and his tail was standing on end. His nose was starting to wet with anger. “It’s a completely narrow path with nowhere to hide except behind rubble. The Vishap will clear all the rubble, mortar through every fallen gate, and mortar the main gate. You think you know better than me, child? I’m a veteran of countless battles! That is why I was entrusted with a superweapon, and you’re just relegated to recon! Shut up!”

Von Drachen shrugged. “I’m going to the front where it’s friendlier. We’ll meet there.”

Nonchalantly, he began to walk away, knowing full well that Von Fennec was not going anywhere near the front. Von Fennec, meanwhile, stood dumbfounded, his old cavalry brain grinding to a halt at the bizarre idea that a General would go join his men to fight.

“How the hell you intend to get there anyway? You’re gonna walk?” Von Fennec shouted.

Still walking away from the Major General, Von Drachen stretched out his arms in glory.

“I’ve evolved since last me and Nakar fought. I’ve finally overcome my one weakness on the battlefield, Von Fennec!” He sounded triumphant. “I have emerged, like a beautiful butterfly from my cocoon! Molted into a force of nature! I have learned how to swim!”

He continued to laugh as he followed the utility truck out into the open desert.

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The 3rd Superweapon (69.1)

This scene contains violence and objectionable bodily fluids.

56th of the Hazel’s Frost, 2030

Undisclosed Location — Newly-Founded Republic of Ayvarta

Furnishing an underground conference room in Ayvarta on a short notice was an ardous task. Nochtish girls in support staff uniform crawled around the ruins of a nearby university, and procured the chairs, the tables, a projector. The Meeting would be held in the command bunker of a set of old coastal guns. During the Solstice War, the guns saw no use. There was no enemy navy in the Southeast Ayvartan Sea. There still wasn’t any; the communists had wrecked the ports and their submarines made long patrols deadly.

Allied flags, banners and symbols were furnished for the meeting room, lights were installed, carpeting, everything that could bring to mind the propriety and comfort of an actual military headquarters. There was an attempt made to sew a banner for the Republic of Ayvarta’s flag, an eagle superimposed over a sun and carrying a sword, the eagle black, the sun red, the backdrop gold. Nobody could get one made in time, and the Republic went unrepresented among the flags of Nocht, Hanwa and Lubon in the room.

At the appointed date and time, the meeting room filled with top generals from the three allied countries. There were Hanwans with their ceremonial swords and dark brown uniforms, and Lubonin officers in their green parade uniforms, never seen on the battlefield, and Nochtish generals all wearing the dour, utilitarian gray common to all soldiers in their army. At the head of the meeting, atop a stage and podium constructed for the purpose, stood Field Marshal Dietrich Haus, a man looking younger than he was, soft-faced, imposingly tall, strong-shouldered, with hair almost to the shoulder now.

He stood before everyone, and behind him, a projector displayed many aerial images of a city, surrounded by walls, vast, larger than any city on any of their continents, able perhaps to hold all of their capitals in one plot of land. On a blackboard, Haus began to write. Across the silent room reverberated the sound of chalk striking board. In a few moments he had several figures up on the board. Then, he turned back to the room.

“The City of the Solstice is the strongest defensive position on the planet, gentlemen. Its air defense network alone comprises 10,000 guns in the city, most of 76mm caliber, many on the wall ramparts. Several of these guns can be used to attack ground targets as well. In terms of raw ground fire artillery, we’re looking at over 30,000 additional barrels. Solstice alone contains the 100,000 strong Revolutionary Guards army, as well as 300,000 reservists. Over 2000 tanks are at their disposal, likely including many of these new types that have gotten the better of us. In the air, we’re looking at at least 1000 fighter aircraft alone, with many hundreds of ground attack planes in support. Judging by the pace at which the enemy has been reorganizing, these numbers will only grow the longer we wait. You can bet that by the time we arrive at the city walls, there will be at least a million frontline personnel, if not more, defending Solstice. Never has a military force of mere men faced such an obstacle. Solstice has never fallen from without; nevermind the name and legend of the Conqueror’s Way. This city has never been taken in a fight.”

“Well,”

There was a lone other voice, sounding above the crowd otherwise entranced by the Field Marshal. One hand rose into the air, as if in a school. Haus followed the hand, the length of the arm, and saw a youthful, grinning face, like a fox. Short dark-blond hair, combed and slicked, and severe, sharp cheekbones accentuated that face, which could not be mistaken, and that detestable voice. It was Gaul Von Drachen of Cissea.

“One person took the city in a fight.” Von Drachen said. “Well, a few really, but one–”

“You mean Madiha Nakar, the mediocre general whom you can’t seem to overcome.”

“You’d do well not to underestimate her.” Von Drachen said. “That girl has, a kind of secret factor, you could say. She will surprise you. Mark my words, friend Haus.”

“I am not your friend, Von Drachen. Shut up, and don’t interrupt me again.”

Several heads in the room turned to glare at Von Drachen, who seemed far too comfortable and satisfied with himself despite everything that transpired.

Haus raised his fist. At the back of the room, his beautiful and unflappable assistant Cathrin Habich switched the images in the projector, from a reel of photographs of Solstice, to a reel that began with a map of Ayvarta. As the reel progressed, more of Ayvarta turned from red to blue. There were dates accompanying each color shift.

“We began this war on the 18th of the Aster’s Gloom. Our primary goal was regime change. The communist Socialist Dominance of Solstice has for years been a sponsor of revolutionary territorism and a dealer in arms to foreign threats to democracy. We carefully built up forces in the two independent nations in the continental Ayvarta, Cissea and Mamlakha, both of whom were sympathetic to our cause. Striking with swift pincer movements, we overran and destroyed many Ayvartan defenses, starting in the states of Adjar and Shaila, and then moving to Dbagbo and Tambwe. Over the the past 100 days we have captured over half the territory of the Ayvartan union. I will not mince words: our losses have been great. Our logistics are in tatters, resupply is slow and ardous and expensive thanks to the lack of suitable port facilities and to deficiencies in our Navy and merchant marine. But we have set foot in the red sand, Gentlemen.”

Cathrin switched the reels once more. Now instead of maps of Ayvarta, there were images of Nochtish and Ayvartan equipment. Photographs, schematics, planning documents, shipping manifests, tables of organization. Cathrin scrolled the images at the slightest signal from Haus, as he addressed the room again with renewed fervor.

“Gentlemen, I want anyone daunted by what you’ve seen and heard to leave this room, and never speak to me again! If you are not energized by this challenge, you are unworthy! We will bring the light of God to the godless communists! Solstice’s walls, dozens of meters towards the heavens, will fall before our might! Even as we speak, the Nocht Federation is preparing 10 weapons known as the ‘Wall-Breaking Potentials’ that will grant us access to the invincible city, where we will end this war. Feast your eyes!”

Again the reel was switched; images of weapons scrolled one after the other, larger than anyone in the room save perhaps Haus himself. Technical specifications on a new explosive, C-10. An ultra-long-range cannon on a super heavy battleship dubbed “Jormungandr.” A massive bomber dubbed “Thor,” and its rockets, “Mjolnir.” A super heavy tank, “Vishap.” An eerie cube shaped material for many experimental uses, “Lehnerite.” Weapon after weapon, fully unveiled with schematics and top secret information. It was awe-inspiring. Everyone in attendance was agape at them.

It was quickly evident this meeting was not simply about unity against the communist scourge. It was about the power of Nocht, about their prestige, ingenuity, wealth.

Ayvarta was a stepping stone, an example.

These weapons could cover any territory. The power to destroy a wall of Solstice could easily become the power to destroy Palladi or Edo. That was the assumption all foreign generals in the room immediately made and Haus did nothing to reassure them.

“You are witnessing the twilight of communism, gentlemen. The end of Revolution. No more will chaos triumph over the order of the world. Nothing and nobody can stand against these powers. Protected by these swords, peace will finally reign on Aer!”

No one dared ask who’s peace, or what kind, or where it would reign, or for how long. Nobody dared say a word, or even allowed themselves a loud breath. Eyes cast cautiously about the room as if looking for commonality. At least Haus was careful not to mention Democracy too much. There were monarchists and imperial theocrats in the room who were uncomfortable enough at the upstart democracy and its boldness.

“In the next few days, we will chart out a path to this peace, together. For now–”

“Ah, wait up! One more thing!”

A familiar voice rose in the back of the room, and a most familiar man walked down the aisle that split up the seating arrangements for the various delegations. Slick blond hair, a sharp suit, boyish good looks and a winning smile: it was none other than Nochtish president Achim Lehner, making his first ever appearance in the Ayvartan continent. Everyone was aghast; even Haus was surprised. His eyes drew wide open, and a smile crept up. He charged off the stage and ran up to Lehner, and took him in arms.

“You should have told me you were coming!” Haus said excitedly.

Lehner did not return the embrace, but did smile at his friend. “It was short notice.”

“Short notice? It’s a week-long voyage. God in heaven.” Haus smiled, and laughed.

Lehner stood back a step from Haus, extricating himself, and the two, once separated once more by propriety, made their way down to the stage. Lehner took the podium. At the other end of the room Cathrin stood in calm, collected confusion, not having any reels prepared for this. Haus motioned for her to cut off the projector, and turn the lights on the stage. Properly shone upon, Lehner began to speak to the crowd himself.

“Hey there, listen, friends, colleagues. A hundred days ago we embarked upon this amazing project together, and it’s been quite an experience. We’ve experienced a hell of a lot. I wanted to be here to see off the next step in the journey to a freer, better, stronger world. Part and parcel of that, is, letting go of old attitudes, old beliefs. Embracing the new. We’ve got all kinds of new. Weapons, tactics. I wanted to be here, personally, to introduce something else new, that I would like all of you to know that we have.”

He gestured to the back of the room again, where the door once more opened up.

“This information doesn’t leave this room, by the way! None of it does, of course, we’ll discuss that, but this especially. This especially does not leave this room, okay?”

Heads turned toward the back, where, perhaps most surprising of all, it was a woman walking down the aisle now. A pair of women; one was tall, slender, fit, with skin the color of molasses and long, dark hair in a messy ponytail, beneath a cap emblazoned with a silver eagle. Her nose was sleek, slender, sharp, her cheekbones high, and her face had a condescending expression. Her uniform was all black, and it was patterned after frontline soldiers, unlike that of her companion, who clearly wore a secretary’s coat and skirt. One was clearly a soldier, or intended as one, while the other was shorter, meeker, blond-haired and blue-eyed and a little bit plump. She would have been fairly typically Nochtish had it not been that she wasn’t: because both women had furry ears and tails.

“Please allow me to introduce you to 2nd. Lieutenant Aatto Jarvi Stormyweather of the Vorkampfer Corps, our first woman combat soldier. Times are a-changing, gentlemen!”

There was no applause. As Aatto took the stage, she shot the crowd a disdainful look, while her companion followed behind her with her tail literally between her legs, and looked utterly terrified. Around the room there were faces, some curious, others perplexed, and several furious. Among the Hanwans in particular, who had some interesting cultural notions toward women, this move did not inspire confidence.

Near the front of the crowd, a man with an old-style Nochtish cavalry uniform and a very geometric mustache stood in consternation and singled out President Lehner. He spoke in a rabid voice, as if he had been ready to snap and this was what broke him.

“Mr. President, you have asked us to conduct this war without materiel, with green men, overseas, against unknown foes, for months, with nary drill nor preparation for jungle warfare, for river warfare, for desert warfare; that, we did honorably, and that, I did grudgingly, for my country. But this, I simply will not stand! I will not stand for this army, already on the brink, to be filled with every two-meter trollop you deem erotic enough–”

From the stage, Aatto glared his way, and the gentleman instantly seized up.

His last words choked up, and he gripped his own throat in confusion, and he stared at Aatto, and at Lehner, and at Haus, and his legs shook as his words continued to fail him, as breath failed to enter him. Lehner looked toward the 2nd Lieutenant: without confusion, as would be expected, but instead with open nervousness. As Aatto’s mouth curled upward in a sadistic grin, the General below seemed to choke more violently.

“Aatto, please.” said the girl beside her, tugging on her sleeve.

“Uh, Stormyweather, that’s good enough, I think this misogynist learned his lesson eh?”

Lehner tried to be affable, and Aatto shot him a glance.

Sighing, she turned her head away.

At once, the old General breathed again in a terrible, raspy gasp.

His knees buckled, and he fell to the ground, and openly expelled blood, and vomit.

It fell out of him like slush, like melting snow. He was coughing up bloody ice.

“As you wish, Mr. President.” Aatto said.

Lehner clapped his hands together. “Uh, thanks, doll. Appreciate you and all you do.”

Aatto rolled her eyes, her tail slowly swishing behind her.

“Whatever.”

Lehner turned back to the room.

Another man was standing.

Gaul Von Drachen was giving a standing ovation, clapping, staring at Aatto in awe.

He seemed entirely too emotional about what had transpired.

Lehner ignored him and addressed the room again.

“Gentlemen, we have a lot to discuss. You see, God has smiled a smile that is only smiled once in a millennia, and he has smiled it on the Federation of Northern States. And on its enemies, he has cast a bolt of lightning that the world hasn’t seen since ages gone by. If you thought Nocht was starting to run out of steam: well, you ain’t seen a damn thing.”

There was chatter, confusion, and a restrained fear, all around the room.

“Gentlemen, who here has heard of magic? None of this leaves the room, by the way.”

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Storm The Castle (68.2)

This scene contains graphic violence and death.

Solstice City — Conqueror’s Way Defense Zone

For all the myth that surrounded it, Conqueror’s Way was a bridge, built out of stone in antiquity and reinforced with steel and concrete in modernity. It had withstood a horrific punishment during the war. Across its monumental bulk the bridge’s gates had been bombed to rubble, the ramparts pulverized, the bunkers and pillboxes crushed by relentless ordnance. Rubble lay undisturbed where it had fallen. Its hundred meter width was pitted and ruptured, but there was clearance here and there, where towers had fallen into the water instead of over the lanes, or where gates blew outward instead of collapsing in on themselves.

Atop the rubble of the outermost gate, soldiers of the 1st Guards Mechanized Division’s 2nd Motorized Infantry Regiment stood guard over the Conqueror’s Way. They passed a pair of binoculars among themselves, each individual hoping that they could confirm the sight before them as merely a wraith in the heat’s haze, a trick of the desert sun and partial dehydration. When the binoculars landed in the hand of eighteen-year-old Loubna Al-Alwi, and she raised them to her eyes and stared over the rubble at the edge of the desert, she saw the sand blowing up into the air in the distance, and the figures, rippling in the heat mirages, moving closer and closer, trampling in a huge mass, until she could make out uniforms, helmets, and guns.

At her side, her partner was quivering. She reached out a hand to Loubna’s shirt.

“Loubna, they’re coming. They’re really coming. We’re really going to fight.”

Loubna was a few months older than Aditha, and she wanted to say something reassuring as a senior to a junior, but she knew she had nothing in her that would ease the situation. They had been waiting with the breath trapped in their chest for months. She could see in Aditha’s sweat-soaked face, in her green eyes, that fear. She felt like she could make out her own perplexed face, mirrored in the tears starting to roll out of Aditha’s eyes.

She shook her head, averted her eyes and took Aditha gently by the hand.

“We should tell the Sergeant and the 2nd Lieutenant. Come on.” Loubna said.

Aditha wiped her tears and nodded her head.

At their sides, the shimmering waters of the long, twisting Qural disappeared behind the remains of the bridge’s barriers as the pair slid down the mound of rubble to the bridge.

Leaving the other five members of the squadron atop the rubble mound, Loubna and Aditha crossed the car lanes on the pitted, uneven bridge flat and ran toward a chunk of a guard tower on the left-hand side. There were people all around, with their backs to rubble, seated with canteens out and tarps strung wherever they could be, trying to beat the heat. Beyond them lay the rubble of the second gate, still half-standing and retaining more of its shape, having only been struck directly by a single heavy bomb from a Nochtish airplane.

There were more people behind that second gate, but that was not Loubna’s destination. Instead, behind the remains of the forward guard tower the recon platoon’s command element had set up a radio under a grey, amorphous tent that looked like another piece of rubble.

Inside, 2nd Lieutenant Charvi Chadgura and 1st Sergeant Gulab Kajari were seated together, crossing out parts of the gridded desert map in conjunction with radio personnel from the Division. It was something that transpired quietly every week. Old maps were destroyed, and new ones with new positions, directions and coordinates were issued and marked up.

Everything looked almost serene, like nobody had any idea the war had arrived.

“Ma’am! There’s a problem!” Loubna said nervously. At her side, Aditha merely stared.

Lt. Chadgura looked up first. Her face, dusty from the desert wind, was fully devoid of emotion, and her speech felt dull to the ears. She was unimpressive of stature, but colorful in appearance, her silver-like hair a contrast to her dark skin. She made an impression.

“Private Al-Alwi; please explain.” replied the Lieutenant, fixing her with a strong gaze.

At her side, Sergeant Kajari pulled off a big pair of radio headphones.

She gave Loubna a big smile from over her shoulder.

“Yes ma’am.” Loubna and Aditha both stood straight and saluted. “Ma’am, at 0137 we caught sight of figures in the desert, and keeping watch on their movements, we now believe them to be the enemy, ma’am! They are making their approach from the desert, direction of uh,”

Loubna’s brain became stuck, she could not remember the surrounding areas well–

“–From the direction of Sharahad, ma’am!” Aditha added, covering for Loubna.

Loubna felt secretly the most grateful she ever had been for Aditha at that moment.

“Huh? Did they get past the 1st Tank then?” Sergeant Kajari said, turning to the 2nd Lt.

“No, they must have gone through the sands. It’s the only gap.” 2nd. Lt Chadgura said.

“So then, it’s probably a recon force and an exhausted one at that.” Sgt. Kajari said.

Sergeant Kajari stood up from the ground, and picked up a Danava type Light Machine Gun set against the wall of the guard house ruin. She stretched her arms up, and let out a big yawn, as if she had not stood up for many hours, or as if she had been bored. Wiping dust off her rump, she walked over to Loubna, who was still stiff as a board nailed to a checkpoint barrier.

Face to face, Loubna was a head taller than Sergeant Kajari. She had bigger shoulders and shorter hair and felt just a little inadequate faced with the unit’s vibrant, energetic idol.

Smiling all the while, Kajari thrust the Danava into Loubna’s hands and patted her back.

“It’ll be fine, Private Al-Alwi! Private Chatham! Let’s go hunting! We’re recon after all!”

Aditha, shorter, longer-haired, a bit more dainty, drained of color.

Loubna gulped, but Sergeant Kajari had such energy it was impossible not to follow her.

“Please be careful, Gulab.” 2nd Lt. Chadgura cried out to them.

Sergeant Kajari merely raised a hand and waved it dismissively, without even turning back.

“We’re forming two echelons! Five of you follow me up to reinforce the mound. All the rest of you stay down here, and form up behind the rubble!” Sergeant Kajari commanded.

Not one canteen was left on the ground, not one tarp strung up. Instantly, all of the platoon that was situated between the 1st and 2nd Gates began to take up fighting positions. Loubna was transfixed by them for a moment, how quickly and efficiently they moved and worked. These were Sergeant Kajari’s regulars, the elite of the 2nd Division’s Guards Reconnaissance.

Meanwhile, their leader was hopping and skipping toward the battle with Loubna in tow.

With almost a relish, Kajari charged up on top of the first gate mound, laid flat atop it, and asked for the binoculars to be passed to her. Loubna and Aditha laid down beside her. Sergeant Kajari raised the binoculars to her eyes and stared down the desert. The advancing forces were making no effort to conceal their movements. Though in fact, it was more apt to say they could not. Aside from the rise and fall of the sand, there was no cover for them to hide from the bullets. Their only protection was to move quickly and spread out their formation.

“Hmm!”

She passed the binoculars to another platoon member, and clapped her hands together.

“I knew it. I read the map correctly. Those are Republic of Ayvarta troops, comrades.” said Sergeant Kajari. “Traitors who joined with Nocht and seek to hand Solstice to them.”

“That’s the Empress’ government in the south.” Aditha said, as if to herself in shock.

“Don’t sound so impressed. Empresses and Kings and Queens are all fake.” Sergeant Kajari said sharply. “I can go around saying the desert belongs to me just as well as anybody else. And nobody has to listen to me either. They’re all cowards, and we’re teaching them a lesson.”

Out in the desert the formations of men entered combat distance, and they could see the yellow uniforms of the Republic, and the Nochtish-issue rifles being hefted up for battle, and the sabers and machetes being drawn by officers signalling their men to charge. There were over a hundred men approaching in scattered groups, all coming within a kilometer.

Sergeant Kajari suddenly stood up from the mound, and raised her rifle to her eye.

She took aim and fired a shot that seemed to resound across the empty desert.

Somewhere in the distance one of the moving figures fell and vanished.

“Take aim and fire, comrades! We’re Guards Reconnaissance, and we lead the way!”

Bullets started to drive right back at them from the desert, striking the rock and rubble, flying over them and past the brazenly upright Sergeant, and it made her mad shouting all the more imposing, all the more commanding. There were now twelve of them atop that mound, and facing the incoming onslaught seemed almost suicidal, and yet, none of them would run.

Loubna found herself reaching down her side, and she pulled up the Danava LMG and set it atop the rubble, the barrel shroud poking out from between two concrete bricks and the sight peeking just over the debris. Beside her, Aditha withdrew her rifle and laid on the rocks, taking aim with her telescopic sight. Her teeth were chattering and her hands shaking.

Sergeant Kajari laid down flat atop the rubble of the first gate and started shooting.

One by one their other comrades in the squad were picking targets and firing.

Judging by what she had seen in the binoculars the approaching enemy lacked vehicles and seemed to be low on heavy weapons. It was a mass of riflemen and bayonets, hoping to penetrate in a cavalry charge without horses. They could do it against a lightly armed position, such as theirs, but there was one wrench in that dire strategy. Sergeant Kajari had entrusted Loubna, perhaps carelessly, perhaps unthinkingly, with the tool to win the battle.

It was like everything Loubna had read in the pamphlets and in the tactical reports.

She had an automatic weapon and none of the enemy approaching her did.

They had no cover, and she had all the bullets, more bullets than the whole squadron.

Everyone’s lives were in her hands. She sweated, and looked down the Danava’s sights.

Her own hands were shaking, but she thought of Aditha and what they had gone through.

“Loubna, are you alright? You’re shaking.” Aditha said, setting up her rifle.

She patted Loubna on the shoulder. In turn, Loubna tried to steel herself for the battle.

“Adi, I’ve never shot anyone real before. But I promised.” She said, in a serious voice.

Aditha looked up from her scope in shock at those words, but she could not say anything before Loubna held down the trigger, and the metal crack of each shot silenced her.

“I promised I’d take care of you!”

Loubna shouted, and from the barrel of the Danava dozens of seething blood-red rounds flew out into the desert, kicking up sharp spears of sand and dust into the air wherever they hit. Loubna swung the gun around on its bipod, settling the sights in the general area of an enemy group and pressing and depressing the trigger rapidly. In short, rapid bursts the bullets soared down on the enemy, grouped closely but deviating in a cone spread that showered the desert.

Her entire body shook with the forces going through the weapon.

Wild and mostly innacurate, her gunfire served to disrupt the enemy’s movements. She moved her sight from group to group, launching several quick bursts before moving to the next, and causing the men to drop, to spread out, to crouch and lose their pace. Formations began to run into each other in the chaos, and the enemy march lost its discipline and efficiency.

As the men scattered, her comrades and their slower-firing weapons could pick them off.

As one, the squadron fired its rifles in time with Loubna’s bursts, and set upon the enemy.

It was powerful; her Danava was monstrously powerful.

When her gun clicked empty, Loubna ripped the pan magazine from it, and reached into Aditha’s bag beside her (she was the support gunner), and slammed a new pan into place.

“Loubna–”

Aditha again had no time to speak before Loubna, focused like bird over a bug, shot again.

This time the men were closer, and this time Loubna’s shots began to inflict upon them.

“Loubna!”

She saw it, or at least, she thought she did, when the first man she ever killed fell.

He was an officer in the midst of his men, holding out a machete, almost 500 meters close.

She set her sight on him, opened fire, and the group dispersed and dropped and scrambled away from the gunfire, but he was caught, instantly, amid the burst. He stood for seconds as if suspended in the air by cables, his arms going limp as the bullets impacted his shoulder, his elbow, his armpit, like a series of knockout boxing blows. His knee exploded from a shot, bringing his dying body down. His face swung to catch a round in the nose.

Loubna had thought the first man she would kill in this war would be some Nochtish devil in grey fatigues with skin like a ghost. Instead, she shot a man as brown as she, and he died.

There was a cosmic instant where this became apparent to her, and she thought she would be trapped in it, and she thought she would regret it so deeply that it would kill her as brutally as the bullets had killed him. But the adrenaline pushed her out of that deific second where she contemplated the power she had, and into the next deific second where she wielded the lightning like the Gods of the North had done. She raised her hand, and with a flick of the wrist had the appropriate elevation angle, and continued to shoot as she had been.

Just that simple turn of the hand guided her bullets to three other men crouching away from the gunfire, and slew them in turn, perforating their flesh and blowing up dust and sand over them. It looked for a ridiculous instant as if spears of earth had blown through their bodies, and the desert itself killed them in revenge. It was just the penetrating power of the gun.

She had shot at beef hunks as part of her training; she knew what bullets did.

Moments later, she felt a click, and a sputtering final recoil through the gun, and she stretched out her hand, shaking like mad, into Aditha’s bag for another pan. It felt numb, weakened.

Suddenly she felt a warm hand on her arm, and turned with wide-open eyes to see Aditha.

Her long, dark hair was over her honey-brown face, and she was sweating, and red in the eyes.

“Loubna, please, you’re hurt. Please.” Aditha said.

Loubna felt a sting in her shoulder.

She looked down and saw a cut in her coat, bleeding.

It hurt suddenly. Her arm started to shake even worse.

“It’s nothing.” Loubna said, her voice trembling.

“You’re shaking. Please, for the love of God, take this and settle down for a moment.”

Aditha handed her an injector, and a compress bandage, from her bag.

She returned to the scope on her sniper rifle.

“Listen. I don’t need you to protect me. In fact, I can protect you. Don’t be so conceited.”

Aditha took a deep breath, and pressed the trigger.

700 meters away a man’s head vanished into red mist.

Loubna could not read Aditha’s mind or place herself in her head.

But she wondered if Aditha had felt that moment of strange disquiet after her first kill.

Seemingly without pause, without even drawing a new breath, Aditha worked the bolt on her sniper rifle, and quickly lined up and took a second shot. Out in the desert a man trying to set up the enemy’s only visible Norgler machine gun fell down a tall sand dune with the weapon, and both ended up partially buried at the bottom of the hill by the rising winds.

“Right now the worst you could do to me is to die. Please, Loubna.”

Loubna nodded, shaken a bit by the intensity of her friend’s words.

She slid down a bit from the position of her gun, flipped onto her back, and spread her coat.

She applied the compress under her clothes and over the wound, the waxy glue sticking the bandage hard against her bleeding, cut and bruised shoulder. She took the injector and pressed it against her neck, and pressed the button, and felt the sudden prick in her skin. There was a cold pain and then a sensation of lightness as the drugs spread through her bloodstream.

“A hundred meters! We’ve got enemies dashing in!” shouted a comrade.

Rifle shots rang out, and were answered, the replies now far too close.

They could hear the boots trudging up the steep mound.

“Loubna watch out!” Aditha shouted.

Loubna looked up and saw a shadow over her with a rifle and a glinting bayonet.

Over her the Republican soldier who had breached the line raised his weapon.

Rifles and pistols went up all around him, but there wasn’t time to stop him.

He roared, and he thrust down.

Then, as if instantly meeting a wall, he sailed back from Loubna.

2nd Lieutenant Chadgura had charged up the rubble and struck him with her shoulder.

He reeled, and she drew her machete and drove it into his gut, pulling him closer.

Blood splashed onto the rubble, onto Loubna, who lay vulnerably beneath the melee.

2nd Lt. Chadgura drew her officer’s pistol, her other hand holding the dying man by the blade.

She thrust the corpse forward, where it met the rifle bayonets of a pair of republican soldiers.

She raised her pistol, and fired at both in quick succession, their faces vanishing in red gore.

“Charvi!”

Sergeant Kajari stood up from the rubble, drew her own pistol and knife, and joined 2nd Lieutenant Chadgura at the fore of the defense, shooting the men clambering desperately up from the desert below. Rifle fire sailed past her, and both officers were lucky that the enemy did not want to stop to aim at the bottom of the makeshift hill, or they would have been shot.

They had no automatic support: Loubna had the Danava, and Loubna could hardly move.

It wasn’t even the drugs or the pain.

It was fear. A man had tried to kill her, to butcher her with a blade.

It was scarier than any shootout, and Loubna felt paralyzed.

“Gulab, please hide, I am enacting a plan.” Chadgura dispassionately said.

“Like shit you are! You scared me to death!” Gulab said.

Both of them continued firing, each taking an enemy corpse in front of them as a grizzly shield.

“You may not believe me, but everything is going according to a design–”

“Oh save it, Charvi. I wasn’t just laying around either.”

Sergeant Kajari dropped her pistol and withdrew something from her back pouch.

There was a bundle of grenades linked by a string.

“Oh, well.” Chadgura said.

“Yeah, well,”

Sergeant Kajari heaved the bundle down the mound, and all the grenades primed at once.

Both tossed the bodies they were holding, absorbing stray fire as they backed away.

They rolled downhill, and Sergeant Kajari turned around and grabbed 2nd Lieutenant Chadgura. They both fell hard onto the rubble, one atop the other, and behind them a half-dozen grenades went off at once, shooting up smoke and metal and collapsing some of the footholds up the rubble of the first gate. Men were thrown bodily, and slid down, and several were caught in the blasts and shredded, and Loubna could barely see it from her vantage. There was just smoke and blood and indistinct carnage and she could hardly believe it.

It had been less than a minute’s worth of war, that exchange, and it was madness.

“Gulab, you have once again succeeded in playing the hero, so could you please–”

Sergeant Kajari, in full view of the rookies, pressed herself against 2nd Lieutenant Chadgura and took her into a kiss, fully and passionately. The 2nd Lieutenant reciprocated in confusion.

When their lips parted they were staring intensely into each other’s eyes.

“Now I succeeded.” Sergeant Kajari smiled.

2nd Lieutenant Chadgura blinked. She did not smile, but she did seem eerily content.

“You absolutely did.”

Sergeant Kajari, elated, turned to the rookies. “You all better not snitch!”

All around the mound, the rookies nodded their heads in surprise, confusion and anxiety.

“Oh right,” Sergeant Kajari looked down at Chadgura. “What was your plan, sweetie?”

“Oh yes. My plan.” Chadgura shouted. “Dabo!”

From behind them, a serene-sounding voice replied.

“Yes ma’am!”

Coming from below, a large, round man ran up the rubble, heaving in his arms a metal gun shield in one hand and a machine gun in the other. As he reached the top of the mound, he slammed into place the shield, burying its sharp underside into the rubble, and he set down the machine gun in the slot on the shield. It was a sleek, black, all-metal gun that Loubna was only vaguely familiar with. Long ammunition belts fed it, instead of pans, and it lacked the characteristic water jacket of the old Khroda machine guns: it was an A.A.W. CH-30 Chakram.

Sergeant Kajari and 2nd Lieutenant Chadgura slowly unwound themselves from each other, and both of them hid behind the gun shield with the large Corporal Dabo, and face down the remains of the enemy in the desert. Sergeant Kajari held the ammunition belts, 2nd. Lt. Chadgura ranged the gun, and Corporal Dabo’s huge hands took the gun handles.

“Platoon machine gun team, ready! Fire for effect!” 2nd. Lieutenant Chadgura shouted.

Corporal Dabo rapped the trigger of the CH-30 and unleashed a storm of firey red tracers.

Each 12.7mm shot from the long barrel of the Chakram boomed like thunder, and there were dozens of shots flying out seemingly every second. It caused a terrifying cacophony, and an even more frightening result on the battlefield. Wherever the gun turned, its shots lanced through the attackers like nothing Loubna had ever seen. This was no Khroda; each bullet was twice as long and nearly twice as thick. Flying red spears rained brutally down on the desert. In their wake whole chunks of human vanished from bodies, arms sliced off, ribcages blown out from the side, heads severed instantly from necks. The Chakram churned through the ammunition in its belt as it churned through the numbers of the enemy, wiping out whole sections and squadrons as Dabo turned the barrel from unit to unit at Chadgura’s instruction.

Loubna’s Danava was a toy compared to this devastating weapon.

It took no more than its fire alone, and the enemy’s charge was completely broken.

Loubna crawled up, and dropped next to Aditha. Both of them bore final witness.

Survivors began to flee into the desert. There were few.

Below the mound were hundreds of bodies it seemed, splayed all over the desert, at the foot of the first gate rubble mound, a few atop the mound from the earlier melee. There was blood everywhere, seeping into the already ruddy sand and turning it almost black in places. There were wounded men still crawling about without hope, and the dead lay pathetically without any uniformity in their wounds, everyone missing something or other, no body left whole.

Loubna could not draw her eyes away from the sight. It was so disgusting she wanted to vomit.

2nd Lieutenant Chadgura stood up from behind the Chakram gun shield and sighed.

“Good kills, Corporal, Sergeant. Private Al-Alwi. Everyone get ready to move back down.”

Around her, all of her comrades were standing up, their rifles against their chests, breathing heavily from the drop in adrenaline. Loubna could still hear the booming of the Chakram and the rhythmic cracking of the Danava in her ears, within the awful silence of the desert. Was that all of the enemy? She looked out over the sands, trying to ignore the scars formed by the blood and bodies on the landscape. There were no more living enemies that posed a threat.

2nd Lieutenant Chadgura raised her voice. “We will ask for reinforcements and perform body collection. Clearly the enemy is persistent. They will attack again. We held out, but we’ll need more than a recon platoon to carry out the defensive plan against this concerted an effort. ”

“You got that right. These guys were crazy. How could they keep charging like this?”

Sergeant Kajari looked quizzically at 2nd Lt. Chadgura as if her lover could answer this.

Chadgura shrugged. “They must have liked their chances against such a light defense.”

“I doubt it was just that. I feel like something’s got to be happening. But, we’ll see.”

Everyone started to wander off down the mound. Aditha stood, and tugged on Loubna’s shirt.

“We’d better go too Loubna. We should at least drink some water and lay back.” She said.

Loubna nodded silently. She felt ashamed of herself, having fought, in her reckoning, as poorly as she had in that engagement. Sergeant Kajari had entrusted everything to her, and yet–

She felt a sudden pat in the back, strong and sharp and full of vigor.

“Good work, private! Amazing for your first real combat. I knew I could count on you.”

Sergeant Kajari appeared from behind her, smiling her honey-brown smile brightly. Her braided ponytail was flying with the desert wind, and she wore the quilted shawl of a desert nomad over her uniform, for reasons unknown to Loubna. She was always smiling at the rookies, and always patting them on the back. When Loubna looked at her, Kajari winked.

“You remind me of myself, Private! Except bigger and tougher! You’re taller than my brothers!”

Loubna did not feel that was particularly flattering, but Sgt. Kajari must have meant well.

“I’m sure you’ll make a splendid soldier! Just stick with Private Chatham here, she looks like the sort who will set you straight.” Sergeant Kajari looked at Aditha and winked too.

Aditha looked between Sergeant Kajari and Loubna and turned red in the face.

“No, it’s, it’s definitely not like that.” She whimpered with embarrassment.

Loubna averted her eyes. “I don’t think this is a good time, ma’am, but thank you for trying.”

Sergeant Kajari laughed. “Listen: don’t take any levity for granted, or you’ll go insane.”

Waving and smiling one last time at the rookies, she turned and followed the 2nd Lieutenant.

Loubna looked at Aditha, and Aditha at Loubna, and they both averted their gazes after.

Loubna averted her gaze toward desert, in time to spot a column of sand blowing into the air.

She blinked, and stared, uncomprehending of what she was seeing.

Something was approaching, and it was either very large, very fast, or both.

“Adi, do you see that?”

Aditha, her arms crossed over her breasts in a meek posture, peeked over her shoulder.

Her eyes drew wide open.

She raised her sniper scope to her eyes and adjusted the magnification.

“Loubna, we had better get the officers back here.” Aditha said, her voice trembling.

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Declaration II (67.4)

17th of the Hazel’s Frost, 2030 D.C.E.

Socialist Dominances of Solstice — Solstice City

Before a small crowd of assembled delegates, statesmen and women and military leaders of a variety of nations, Daksha Kansal stepped out of the shadows and took a podium. She was used to speaking plainly, and the microphone in front of her felt very conspicuous. This address, however, was being recorded for broadcast far abroad. It would set the stage.

Within a projection room in a bunker beneath the SIVIRA Headquarters building, the half of the world still resolute against imperialism gathered for a secret, historic moment. They had traveled from around the world in support of Ayvarta.

Daksha had not written this speech. She was too busy. But she spoke nevertheless with the candor that had come to characterize her. She threw her fist high, raised her voice, and though it was sinole and short, the room nonetheless shook.

“Fellow delegates and the world community. I would like to open this momentous occasion with a personal anecdote. Somebody once told me that the world would abandon Ayvarta, should it decide to roll heedless like a boulder down the path of Socialism.”

Daksha paused for effect and made a gesture with her hands. She had practiced the speech once beforehand, and had vetted its contents. It wasn’t her style: she preferred blunt, enumerated talking points. But she trusted the contents like she trusted her comrades.

“This man,” she continued, “was a rising star of the old Social Democrats, who did not dream as I did of a world where we were all stars as he was. He wished to work within a system of oppression to achieve peace for the city-dwellers he deemed hard-working and worthy enough; he was never a man for the rural souls among us. He was smart, a hard worker, of that there was no doubt. But he just did not see, he did not understand. All of us here, socialist or not, know now that even this small step cannot be achieved within empire, and that any liberation must be achieved with the people, not in spite of them.”

There was applause from the audience, unprompted. Daksha waited a moment for it.

“Any great work must undergone as a community, not merely a cadre. Now, this once powerful, once vibrant man cannot be with us today, but I dearly wish I could show him the assemblage of nations in this room, who have cast aside their differences in support of Ayvarta and its people in their darkest hour: because of our socialism and despite it. I wish I could show him this Ayvarta that his eyes failed to see, an Ayvarta that even with its strength sapped by the imperialist leech, is stepping forward to be part of a world community, in the greatest endeavor for peace ever witnessed by human eyes. I wish I could have made him understand that all peoples must be brought together to fight Empire. Whether it be rural and city dwellers together, or say, Svechthans and Helvetians. I wish I could have shown him too that sometimes, to grow a field, you must burn it first. You cannot always work with what you have. Some roots are too rotted and too deep to be nurtured any better. Sometimes struggle must be had. Sometimes life must be lost.”

She did not tell the room that she had been the one to kill him. None needed to know.

Her speechwriters certainly did not know. But they chose their story presciently.

“Alas, I could not save him. But we can save others in his stead. So here we are.”

Daksha spread out her arms and took a hidden breath. Before her, there was the solemn, respectful applause of a room ready and prepared to deal in the business of nations.

“You have my sincerest gratitude, on behalf of the Ayvartan people. We shall have no further delay. Here today assembles the first presidium of the forces of the Solstice Pact.”

Ayvarta’s Premier stepped down from the platform, and reached out her hands to hold those of the Svechthan military delegation leader, General Zhukova, and the Helvetian representative, Millennia Alsace, as they climbed up to the platform and stood side by side with her, arm in arm, feet to feet, all of them ready to discuss the future of the free world.

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Declaration II (67.3)

1st of the Hazel’s Frost, 2030 D.C.E

Socialist Dominances of Solstice — Solstice City

As part of the terms of her leave Madiha and any guests she desired (in her case, only one) had been afforded a temporary stay at a comfortable little apartment building in the central quarter, just around the People’s Peak. These apartments were for government workers who came and went on business. Generals were considered to be among those.

After successfully completing her shopping, Madiha returned to the apartment with her treasure in tow, only to find the door locked. It was a third floor apartment and all the hallways were enclosed. From the plain, utilitarian facade of the pillar-like building and its unadorned halls, nobody would have known it was anything special. It seemed unlikely to Madiha that security would be a concern in here. Much less for Parinita, who, despite her appearance, was a soldier, and must have trained in basic self-defense skills for it.

Still, Madiha took her key and unlocked the door with an audible click.

She turned the knob, opened the door, and found Parinita at the little couple’s tea table in the middle of the living room situated just off of the door. She blinked, staring with muted fascination at her lover’s rather sparse attire: an apron, a camisole and undergarments. Bright red pigment adorned her lips, and her wavy, strawberry hair she shook loose.

Parinita slid a slender finger over the rim of a wine glass, and made a sultry expression.

“You kept me in suspense there, Madiha.” She said, winking at her from the table.

“Parinita?”

Her lover cocked a little grin. “This is the scene where I coax you to temptation.”

Madiha blinked. “Well. I brought the groceries. Are we having dinner?” She stammered.

“Oh I’ll help you build an appetite.” Her lover said.

Parinita stood from the table, beckoning Madiha with a finger in the air.

She took a long-legged step forward, and then promptly tripped and fell.

“Parinita!” Madiha cried out.

From the floor, Parinita started laughing.

“I’m sorry Madiha, I tried but I just can’t do the sultry succubus act very well.”

“I’m sorry, I should have participated with greater enthusiasm.” Madiha replied.

“I hope you were turned on a little.” Parinita said.

Madiha did not want to admit exactly how turned on she had been.

After everyone had collected themselves, the night’s preparations began in earnest. Parinita dressed up a little more, in a vibrant skirt and sari, and together she and Madiha began to prepare dinner as they had planned. Though Madiha had made General, in Parinita’s kitchen she was a grunt. Dressed in the same apron that had barely covered her lover beforehand, Madiha chopped onions, smashed garlic, mixed dressings; meanwhile Parinita read recipes, measured spices, and passed ingredients down the bar for Madiha.

“Coconut milk!” Parinita ordered.

“Yes ma’am!” Madiha replied, pouring a small flask of coconut milk into a pot of curry.

“Salt and pepper!”

“Of course!”

“Red pepper, to taste!”

“At once!”

Both of them started to laugh. Madiha rolled up lettuce wraps and spread out flatbread; Parinita stirred up sauces, squeezed lemon, and kept the recipes, her notepad a sacred book of lore. This small moment of domesticity, even with the military tinge conjured by Madiha’s mind, was characterized by a stunning peace and a sensational feeling of joy.

Madiha could not help but notice herself smiling, to realize how funny, how sweet the scene was. General Nakar, the Right Hand of Death, chopping tomatoes instead of heads. She looked fondly at her partner, who just a month ago had been an unrecognized paper pusher in a corrupt military administration. She recalled the moment their eyes met, and she thought, Parinita obviously had a fascination then, but Madiha had as well. Madiha had wanted to protect her. In that space, it was impossible to dream of all that this was.

But Madiha, some part of her, had desired that, and she was overjoyed to have it here.

A moment where these two soldiers were nothing more than a queer pair of women cooking like a couple in a loaned apartment building, ignoring the capital under siege.

Their small table in the living room could scarcely hold the plates. There was coconut milk curry with a drizzle of glistening oil and onions atop, and chickpea-lentil wraps, flatbread, a red and green salad dressed with yogurt, and fried, potato-filled bonda. Madiha was astounded at the amount and variety of food that had come out of their ingredients and preparations. Parinita bid her lover to pause for a small prayer before they began.

“Your aura is very peaceful! What an improvement!” Parinita then said.

She reached out a hand and touched Madiha’s forehead. Madiha did not feel the usual cooling, calming effect of Parinita’s “magic” touch on her, perhaps because she was not burning up from her power at the time. Madiha had hardly used her “abilities” in days. (Parinita desired she call them psionic or ESP abilities but Madiha resisted that still.)

“I’ve had time to calm down.” Madiha said.

She took a spoonful of curry and tasted it. It was spicy and rich with a hint of sweetness.

“How is it?”

“It’s excellent.”

“Hah! Of course it is!”

Parinita crossed her arms and puffed herself up a little with pride. Madiha laughed.

“Just like all the great feast scenes of cinema.”

“Are there that many?” Madiha asked.

“Well, maybe not feast scenes, but you see characters eating in almost every movie. They have expert chefs to make the edible food, and they use artists to make prop food for the backgrounds of restaurants. You just have to have a food scene in a movie nowadays.”

Madiha nodded. “True. Food does tend to play an important role in films.”

“Yes! Food is often symbolic of the times the characters live in. In a movie our table would symbolize the domestic bliss we feel right now.” Parinita enthusiastically said.

“It is definitely an improvement from eating lentils out of a bag in the office.”

Parinita chuckled. “You’d like them better if you used the spice pack.”

“You get a spice pack in maybe a quarter of the bags these days, unfortunately.”

“I guess that’s also symbolic of something.” Parinita sighed.

“It’ll get better.”

It had to.

After the meal, Madiha and Parinita cleaned up together and returned to the living room. There was a television in the room, a rarity that often had to be shared communally if it existed in a community at all. They turned on the box and sat on the couch together, side by side and holding hands. Like a radio, the television had different frequencies–

“–they’re called ‘channels’.” Parinita said.

–and this particular television had four. One was a broadcast test from the University of Solstice, and the camera was pointed at large, intricate mobiles and dioramas, sometimes with music in the background. Another was the official state channel, currently showing broadcasts of Daksha Kansal’s speeches and public appearances the past month.

Then there was the educational channel, which was shown to schools. Wherever the local teacher’s union approved of the program, one television was furnished to a school to watch this channel. Because it was late and kids were back home, it was showing a political program about the Svechthan Revolution instead of any children’s programming.

Finally there was a channel for the promotion of the arts and music, which was presently broadcasting a theater performance from Solstice. Madiha recognized the performance.

“It’s Alawian Nights. I’ve heard this song before. Marik is opening the door.” Madiha said.

“I’ve only seen the film version.” Parinita replied. “Ohh, I love the dancing.”

“They’re very precise. We should train our soldiers to move like that.” Madiha said.

“You’re always looking out for the army.” Parinita sighed fondly.

She laid her head down on Madiha’s chest, and wiggled around on top of her, laughing.

Madiha laid a hand on her head and stroked her hair, smiling.

“I love you, Madiha.” Parinita said.

“I love you too.” Madiha replied.

They had met on the 18th of the Aster’s Gloom. On the day of the invasion. Madiha had been inspecting a delinquent military headquarters when the two of them were thrust into each other’s paths. Through violence and hardship, the two of them forged a bond closer than they had ever felt with another, and faster than either would have ever dreamed.

It was strange. There was no denying that it was strange. But it was love; it was true love.

They needed each other. And though Madiha had many reasons to be attracted to Parinita, physically, spiritually; what she thought about the most was how much she loved just being around her now. Just having her there. She wanted them to be able to sit down like this, and talk about any old thing, but with minds totally unclouded, bodies unharmed. Without a looming threat on the horizon. She wanted to sit down with Parinita and watch the television and hold hands and kiss and know that there would be years more of this.

“Someday, Madiha, there’ll be films on Television. You’ll be able to watch them whenever you want and the film theaters will be for big parties or for communal viewings.”

Parinita smiled, and she laid further down on Madiha’s lap.

Madiha looked down at her, and they locked eyes.

She leaned down and kissed Parinita, their lips entwining.

When they parted, Parinita reached up to stroke Madiha’s cheek.

“Someday, Madiha, I want to make a film, and you’ll be the hero.” Parinita said.

“Really?”

“Yes! I don’t want it to be just a hobby. I want to use what I know and make a great film.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“And you’ll be the hero! You’ve got a great face and body. You’re perfect for it.”

Madiha thought about the future. What did she want to do? Had everything been perfect, had Nocht never attacked, had Communism been fully built, had the world not been hostile, what did Madiha want to do? She had always thought of war. She was still thinking about war. She had her book to write, her theories. She had this war to fight; to win.

“I’d love to be the hero.” Madiha said.

For now, it was fun and calming to indulge this fantasy.

“Parinita,”

What she wanted to say, to preface things, was that, she was going to keep fighting. She had resolved to keep fighting until Nocht was destroyed. They could not exist together in the same world. It was proven by the 18th of the Aster’s Gloom, and it was theorized by Lena Ulyanova herself. The Imperialists would not allow them to exist in peace. Capitalism and Socialism could not coexist in the globe. There would be war as long as Nocht stood.

But she did not say it. On some fashion both of them knew it, they had to know it. They would keep fighting, side by side. They could not have peace until they won this war.

Both of them knew this, but they needed futures. They needed to fight for themselves too.

What Madiha managed to say was far better said without preface, without varnish.

She took Parinita’s hand after softly cooing her name. She kissed her again.

“Will you marry me?”

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