This chapter, and much of the story, contains scenes of violence and death, as well as descriptions of weapons and their effects. Please be advised when reading.

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Under a brutal northern snowfall the old Federation capital of Junzien was alive with the fire of history. It was a day when every thread of Nocht’s timeline would tragically collide.

Cheering crowds gathered along the streets as the Presidential motorcade departed the Hotel Reich and made its way toward the Foundation Stone at the site of the former capitol building. Alongside the motorcade the crowd marched as a procession, throwing roses and lighting snapping sticks, hoping to catch a glimpse when the President finally lit the ceremonial fireworks that symbolized the old fortress cannons, their heavy shells striking down the approaching monarchist enemy in the name of independence.

Clad in their thickest winter coats the citizens braved the cold drift to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Federation of Northern States. To the northern people, it was still better known as the Nocht Federation, for the man who first lit the matches that sounded the fateful cannons. But that ancient name was not the one sung on this triumphant day.

President Achim Lehner leaned back in his seat, arms behind his head, listening to the crowd as they chanted his name and recited several of his campaign slogans. He cast a sly smile toward his radiant wife, dolled up in pigments and shiny hair, mink and silk, sitting with one limousine seat between them, hoping she would join the festivities. She coldly and immediately shrugged off his attentions, staring out the window with her head held up on a closed fist. He could see her half-closed, bored eyes reflected in the tinted glass.

No matter; he was riding too high to care. Whatever embittered her this time would soon pass. Chuckling to himself, he leaned forward from his seat, rubbing his hands.

Across from him, his lovely secretary leaned to meet him, and handed him papers.

“Revised copies of the speech, as requested.” She said.

“Cecilia, doll, you never cease to impress.” He replied.

Scanning the lines, he was elated to find his most recent successes were all featured on the pages. He could reveal to the world, even before the press, the capitulation of the Cissean rebellion, and the establishment of Nocht’s newest ally in the global south. He had finally put that war to bed as he had promised. He was almost assured an eight-year term now.

And where were the pundits now? Lehner laughed aloud. This was too good.

Turning out of the hotel avenue, the motorcade drove deep into the urban heart of Junzien, through roads flanked with buildings wedged one between the other, gray, gloomy cement and glass monuments to the city’s endurance. Lehner much preferred the new capital further up Rhinea, a larger, more modern place, sleek and efficient and artful, but Junzien was his people’s heart. So he begrudgingly made space for it in his own.

“We have to start moving quick after this. Build Cissea up.” Lehner said.

“Unfortunately, the island campaigns have sapped the strength of the Bundesmarine.” Cecilia quickly replied. “Our capacity to ship to Cissea is currently very limited.”

“Work on that, darlin’. It’s nothin’ that can’t be be fixed. You gotta find the problems and the solutions and you move heaven and earth — that’s what all of you are here for.”

“We can start on it; but in this case we need to move an ocean.” Cecilia said.

Lehner burst out laughing, slapping his knees. “God. I keep remembering why I hired you. And I just think to myself ‘damn, Lehner, good move, my man, good move.'”

Cecilia pushed up her glasses, her face reflecting his own impish grin.

At Lehner’s side, his wife’s expression soured ever so slightly more.

Outside the snowfall thickened, but the people struggled all the more to keep up. Everyone was used to the conditions of this venerable celebration. It had been this cold on that fateful day, and yet the rebel soldiers fought on nonetheless. Lehner waved through the tinted glass at the marchers, men, women, and children, cheering and running. They were separated from the motorcade by marching policemen in dress uniform.

Slowly the motorcade was poised to escape the tightest confines of Junzien.

Lehner picked a glass of wine from the side of his limousine seat.

There was a flash and a crack from up ahead.

At once the limousine came to a stop sudden enough to shake President Lehner.

Red wine spilled on his shirt and coat.

Lehner threw his hands up in anger. “Fuck! What the hell–”

Red blood sprayed on the window beside him, and there was a thud on the glass as one of the police escorts hit the limousine, falling dead with shells through his chest.

Muzzles flashed skyward, and gunfire rang out from inside the crowd.

Police drew their pistols in a split-second response and fired into the streets.

Panicked marchers ran every which way to escape the carnage.

Grenades flew out from the throngs and detonated among the motorcade.

Glass windshields shattered on police cars and motorcycles. Fuel tanks went up in columns of flame, sending shards of metal screaming through the crowd and roasting special agents and foot police inside their vehicles. Policemen fighting on the streets were grazed or clipped by metal shards and many fell. Amid the massacre the limousine stood unharmed, explosive fragments bouncing off its sloped, disguised armor plating.

From the rapidly thinning crowd, an assailant in a covering trenchcoat and hat opened fire into the window of the limousine. Twin wounds marred the glass, each composed of dozens of concentric circles with a cap lodged between. His gun failed to penetrate.

Agatha Lehner nevertheless screamed and ducked against her husband in fear.

President Lehner grit his teeth.

“Cecilia.” He said, more aggravated than anxious.

Shaking with nervousness, Cecilia slammed her heeled shoe on the floor, and dug out from under a sliding panel a sleek, fully automatic Norgler machine gun, top of the line.

She clumsily pulled up the cover on the feed tray, slid the ammunition belt into it, locked it in place, and pulled back the charging handle to ready the weapon. It fed with a satisfying click, just like they had practiced. She held the gun aloft, her shoulders shaking.

Outside the assailants concentrated their gunfire on the limousine.

Bulletproof glass absorbed a dozen rounds of punishment.

It was getting hard to see the fight.

Lehner nodded his head with determination and Cecilia nodded back. She dropped between the rows of seats in the back of the limousine, sidling close to the door with the Norgler in hand. She pushed it up to the door. Lehner leaned down, holding his wife close, both their heads down under the level of the windows for safety. He pulled a catch.

On the door a panel just large enough for the Norgler opened.

Cecilia pushed the gun through the slot and slipped a slender finger over the trigger.

Swinging the weapon from side to side she opened fire indiscriminately.

At once a noise like an automatic saw overwhelmed the sounds of battle.

Casings dropped to the floor of the limousine by the dozens every second as Cecilia held down the trigger on the Norgler, barely controlling its overwhelming fire. She closed her eyes and held on to the weapon as bursts of automatic fire swept from the side of the limousine. Lehner peered over the window and watched as best as he could through the marred glass as the weapon rained lead on the streets. He strained his eyes and saw the trenchcoat men as they were brutally cut down with barely a struggle.

Another sharp click and the Norgler ejected its last casing.

Once the noise of the automatic fire died down, the street was empty and silent.

Lehner waited in the limousine, stroking his wife’s shoulders and pulling her head to his chest, her tears soaking into the wine-stained coat and shirt. He sighed deeply.

Cecilia stood up from the floor, sweating, breathing heavily.

“It’s a hell of a gun.” She said, her voice trembling.

After several minutes, a surviving police officer knocked on the window.

President Lehner stepped out of his battered limousine and inspected the carnage.

His weary eyes rolled over the blood and viscera, the bodies of innocents, of officers, of assailants alike, the burning wrecks, the bullet casings littered all over the ground, all of the madness that had unfolded on his streets in mere moments on this historic day.

Only on detail burned in his mind at that instant.

All of the weapons he saw gripped in the death-frozen fingers of the soon-to-be infamous Federation Day Terrorists, were of Ayvartan make. Their grenades, their firearms, all of their arsenal had been manufactured in the Socialist Dominances of Solstice.

“That’s damning.” He told himself under a cold breath. “And useful.”

---

10th of the Aster’s Gloom, 2030 D.C.E.

Adjar Dominance – City of Bada Aso

Despite knowing she was unwanted there, she took a seat at one of the parasol-shaded tables outside the Uttarakuru, a small cooperative restaurant, and she waited.

This was a place with a long history for her.

Too long; she had done too much in this city, and at these tables.

Her return was almost painful and she knew it would be brief.

She knew in the back of her mind that her visit was fruitless. It would change nothing. All that she had done was now burned into the inscrutable body of history.

Her words would not expiate for the sins she committed here.

She turned her head, away from the brick and glass etched with painful history.

People came and went down the old cobblestone streets. It was midday and they flocked to eateries: Civil Canteens, Ration Offices, and Restaurants like the Uttarakuru. They were in a hurry. There were always essentials like flatbread, fruit juice and lentils, but a few items were always first come, first serve. Especially the meat items.

Watching the crowds hurry under the sun exacerbated the heat that she felt in her military uniform, even while shaded by the parasol. The Adjar Dominance in general had a furious climate even in the autumn, and especially before the winter rains.

Around her the people coming and going wore loose overall trousers and tunics, cloth and silk drapes, long gentle robes and dresses, in all kinds of colors. All she had was her military uniform to wear; in more ways than one it was the skin that she wanted to show.

In many ways she had resigned herself to it — and to the consequences.

She looked into the restaurant.

No service had taken note of her yet; she waited, and she sighed.

Her heart beat furiously. Blood pounded through her veins.

Her very presence was an injustice.

As she sat and waited for the inevitable conclusion, her mind drifted. She closed her eyes and heard the voices around her. There was sound all around the city, and close by a dozen conversations traveled through the air, like the pulse of life in Bada Aso.

“Lubon only stopped trading with us only a month ago and it already feels like an eternity since I’ve had some good wine. Our people are hopeless about wine, let me tell you, comrade. We’re hopeless about a few things, but wine is the worst of them all.”

“You tacked on the comrade pretty fast, didn’t you, you bourgeois swine? Ha ha! Stop complaining about the wine. You’ve got a guaranteed roof over your head and food on the table and here you are, crying about wine? Some things never change, I suppose.”

“Wine’s never been a bourgeois thing! I always drank it, back when we could get it, it was cheap. It’s always been cheap. It’s always been proletarian. Until those backstabbing elves stopped trading it! That’s the problem. And the hopeless grape farmers in Jomba.”

“Drink your palm wine, your ancestors didn’t even have the grapes.”

Swirling away from the complaints of old men the wind began to carry the gossip of the young ladies, fashionable and energetic, streaming in from offices nearby.

“Looks like Nocht is trotting out the Empress on another pity party for the Old Empire. Some of those Noctish politicians have been saying the Warden and the Councilors should meet with her and discuss reconciliation. But the President still calls us terrorists.”

“Hmph. That so-called Empress is so tiring and so shameful. No Ayvartan cares for her except all the parasites and thieves who fled with her to Nocht and who ran away to Mamlakha and Cissea. She should give up and stay in Nocht. Do something useful there.”

“I would not be so quick to dismiss her. A lot of countries treat her and her retinue as a legitimate government in exile. There are even people here in Ayvarta who think things were better under the Empire than right now. I read a newspaper article about it recently.”

“What paper would say that? Stop reading the Cissean’s rags, it’s all Nocht propaganda to foment unrest here. No self-respecting Ayvartan wants that woman back here.”

She nearly lost herself while listening to others. Those people were meant to be here, meant to discuss their problems and feelings openly and cheerfully. That was why their voices had such strength, while her own was suppressed. She sighed painfully to herself.

Then, finally, the wind carried a heartbreaking voice to her ears.

“Madiha,”

Like a dagger to the heart, she heard her own name and felt like she would stagger.

Madiha Nakar turned on her seat clumsily, partially, whipping around to meet the woman that she had come to see. She was one of the recent owners of this old diner, Chakrani Walters, in her long brown jumper and dress shirt and her ribbon tie, her hair done up in long, luxuriant ringlet curls. She had just the expression that Madiha expected to see on her – shock, anger, disgust, hatred. Her green eyes seemed on the verge of tears just from having to meet Madiha. This was a cruelty that Madiha was inflicting on her.

But Madiha wanted– no, she needed to try one last time.

“Does the KVW have business with me?” Chakrani sharply asked.

“I have come to visit as a civilian.” Madiha said.

“Really? You don’t look like one.”

“I do not own very many clothes, so I am here in uniform.”

“So, you’re just here because you felt like it?”

“Well—“

“Okay. Then get out.” Chakrani said. “You’re unwelcome here. Go away.”

“Chakrani, I simply wish to speak to you.” Madiha said.

Many of patrons quieted and made a deliberate act of minding their business.

But they were all watching.

Some of their eyes probably shifted to Madiha’s lapel and to her breast, where her medals were proudly pinned, including her twice-earned title of Hero of the Socialist Dominances. On her shoulder, her pins indicated she held the rank of Captain.

“I have nothing to say to you.” Chakrani said. “Leave and don’t come back.”

“I wanted to say that I am sorry.” Madiha said. Her voice was faltering.

“You’re sorry?” Chakrani shouted.

She pulled some of her curls off from over her ears, as though she could not believe this and must have heard it wrong. “Sorry? You came to say you’re just sorry?”

“Please, listen, what happened has haunted me for a very long time–”

Chakrani reached out suddenly and with a quick, dismissive gesture she shoved Madiha on her breast, overturning her chair and throwing her on the ground.

“Poor miserable Madiha! I guess you’ll be haunted and hungry. Go away or I’ll shove those medals down your throat. I’m filing a complaint!” She shouted again, raising her voice all the more, until it seemed like all of the Dominance would soon hear her shout.

Madiha could not help it herself. She felt angry and frustrated; she thought she deserved a change to speak. She wanted to say everything she felt as gently as possible but her own anger conspired against her, and the words she thought would be convincing to Chakrani, words that might finally absolve Madiha of her sins, instead came out warped, twisted into a petty whimpering. What she said was all too far from what she wanted.

“You cannot refuse service to military personnel!” were the dreadful words.

Chakrani had been holding back tears; now she wept.

She wept openly and loudly and without hesitation.

Tears streaming down her anguished face Chakrani raised her foot and delivered the sharpest, most hate-filled blow that she could to Madiha’s stomach, as though she wanted the kick to push Madiha’s innards out her mouth. Madiha stifled a cry.

Chakrani’s foot came down on her again and again. She kicked her in the stomach, then swiped her in the hip, all the while shouting, “Out, out, out! You monster!”

Feeling like she would die if she remained, Madiha crawled away, to her knees and then to her feet, and she ran away from the diner holding onto her bruised stomach. She wept and sobbed and whimpered, while behind her Chakrani screamed even more, no longer able to say words. She screamed and roared and made noise just to let out the anger, as though the words might finish Madiha off as she retreated pitifully away.

Limping across the street, Madiha felt like she would drop dead any second.

18th of the Aster’s Gloom, 2030 D.C.E.

Adjar Dominance — Cissean (Nocht) Border

Lately the guards at the entrance to the Ox army HQ building had grown used to unexpected visits. There were a lot of strange cars coming and going from the base. This latest visitor shocked them stiff and nervous, however. Helpless, they watched from afar the mysterious arrival of a half-track truck painted in the pattern of a KVW liaison.

They knew the name and its significance very well.

Kivuli Jeshi A Watu – known as the Shadow Army during the Revolution.

The vehicle drove around the garrison and the depots at a leisurely pace. It circled the border defenses, where abandoned anti-tank guns lay in slumber and barbed wire and tank traps formed a rust red line between Ayvarta and the woodlands at the edge of Cissea.

On this ancient continent, Cissea was one of two independent countries connected to but outside the Socialist Dominances of Solstice, Ayvarta’s ruling government. Its border in the south was once sleepy but always necessarily guarded. Now that it was treated as a border with the Nocht Federation its protection was of the utmost importance.

Paralyzed in their booth, the guards tailed the vehicle with their eyes as much as they could. Soon its inspection took it uphill toward the headquarters.

When the half-track stopped at their gate, the guards scarcely knew how to react.

There was such disarray in the entry booth that both the guards had even gone so far as to salute the car without their hats or headgear and with their guns lying forgotten on the floor. Thankfully for them, the arriving Inspector overlooked these details.

“You are being inspected by the KVW.” She said. “I’m here to see Major Gowon.”

At the Inspector’s order the guards stepped out.

They pulled open the gates and stepped aside. The half-track car inched up the cobblestone driveway and around the elaborate statue fountain to the front entrance.

Gowon’s resplendent new headquarters brought to mind the bourgeois word Estate — this place was a massive ornate building flanked by a circle of thick hedges, originally constructed decades past as a capitalist villa. There was a thick scent of fresh paint about the courtyard, and indeed the rich facade of the estate glistened in the sun. Branches and fresh plant detritus lay under the hedge trees, suggesting a recent trim.

The Half-Track parked up on the concrete street before a series of pearlescent steps leading to the rich entryway. Two people dismounted from the vehicle.

Most notably among them was the Inspector General, a striking older woman, perhaps in her early forties, her tall black body and dark curly hair in sharp contrast to the bright red and gold KVW Officer uniform; the other agent seemed like a liaison or aide, a young woman, skin a muted brown, wearing the common troops’ green jacket and pants.

Madiha Nakar, the aide, seemed unassuming, despite the medals and pins suggesting her rank and accomplishments. She had a pen clipped over her neck-length, straight dark hair and she held a paper pad in her hand, many pages of which had already been folded back and filled with notes. Her expression was neutral and professional.

The Inspector approached the landing, and she approached always a step behind.

There was no established greeting party so they dismounted to no acclaim.

The Inspector scoffed at the top of the steps. There should have been a proper contact for them. Madiha wondered if Gowon’s staff had elected not to relay their messages.

A minute later the soldiers from the gate recognized their folly and ran all the way from the gate and past the two women, hurrying up to the door. They stood in front of the two arrivals and saluted, this time with their hats on and their rifles across their chest. They then ushered the new arrivals up the steps and took their places beside the doorway.

“You are trying my patience.” The Inspector said.

Her voice was devoid of emotion, but still menacing.

She tapped one of the soldiers on the nose with a light wooden truncheon.

“Madiha, take note of these soldier’s names and ranks. I will want to speak with them personally regarding the kind of discipline that has been instilled in this garrison, and the kind of training that they have been offered by their superiors.”

Madiha approached the guards with casual indifference and pulled their tags up to get a good look at the names and ranks etched upon them. The soldiers stayed frozen in their salute. In reality she knew all too well what must have been crossing their minds as this happened. They were only there to secure extra rations and get to shoot a gun.

As a whole the military was being treated like a game — it was not their fault that Adjar had been run ragged, exploited by the unruly, rebellious command of Battlegroup Ox.

It was not their decision to make or influence, they could not right these wrongs, if they even understood them. Something was rotten in these rebellious southern Dominances and it simply swept along all the naive youth. They did not deserve punishment.

She hoped they would receive none but she could not be sure of that.

These were trying times and there was a lot of friction.

“Yohannes Degbo, and Radama Malouf.” Madiha said under her breath while writing down the names in clumsy strokes. The men were so artificially stiff that their shaking looked all the more obvious. They were terrified of her; she hated that.

She did not smile at them, but she did nod her head thoughtfully at them once she had their names and ranks, and she hoped this was taken for the sympathy that it was.

Regardless, the men opened the richly carved wooden door for them to reveal a grand entryway flanked with treasures of jade and onyx and opal upon display pedestals. Captured from capitalists, ill-gained in some way, or merely original to the Estate? Madiha could not tell. She struggled to show no expression in the face of such opulence.

Inspector Kimani looked very briefly stricken with disgust. She narrowed her eyes.

Stray staff members passing the entryway took notice of them, and quickly guided the Inspector and Madiha upstairs, and through a hallway with a wonderful view of the countryside, the scope of its defenses, and of the intermittent line of red made by the old barbed wire, gun shields and tank traps. Madiha thought she could see a few people along the defensive line now, like ants appraising the guns and pillboxes.

Perhaps the half-track driving around had momentarily awoken them.

Perhaps they just had lunch on the trenches everyday, as if it was picnic scenery.

Gowon’s staff hung back while the Inspector and Madiha ambled into a princely office, heavily decorated, its centerpiece a desk made of exotic woods and painted glass.

Behind this desk sat Major Gowon, soaked in sweat and developing a cough. He was a very tall, broad man – the half of him visible above his desk was an ample display of his physical power even in uniform. And yet, he was struck dumb and sick with horror, able to say or gesture nothing to acknowledge the Inspector and Madiha in his Estate.

He offered no seat to either of the inspectors.

They nonetheless sat before him, and the room remained deathly quiet while the Inspector appraised the Major, giving him more time to quiver. She drummed her black fingers on the desk, and turned her red-ringed golden eyes from the Major to the golden dishes and ivory trinkets hanging on his walls. Madiha took down a few idle notes.

Inspector Kimani was the first to break the silence.

“The Adjar Dominance is a valuable command, Major. Nocht-controlled Cissea lies beyond the woods. I was dispatched by the Military Council to insure this Dominance is above the standard of the rest, as it must be. Yet, I appear to have found a garrison far below the standard of even the sleepiest and most rural of the outer Dominances.”

Gowon choked suddenly. He started to cough and hack with increasing harshness. He raised his hand and gestured for the Inspector to give him a moment. He was forced to withdraw a fancy silver flask from his desk drawer and suck down several drinks from it.

Once he regained his voice it was coarse and frog-like.

“Perhaps we could discuss this in greater detail without the Captain in the room?”

Madiha blinked. She moved to stand. Kimani gestured for her to remain.

“She is my subordinate, Gowon. Since this is an official action taken by the KVW to discipline the Territorial Army she outranks you, whatever the bars on her shirt might say.”

There was a brief, vicious turn in the Major’s disposition. His eyes wandered over her with a violence in them. Madiha remained composed despite the fleeting scorn directed at her. Working in the shadow of the Inspector she had learned to keep a strong front and in a way, Kimani’s immense authority over ordinary enlisted personnel served to shield her from the scorn of many older officers. She had been seated in several meetings like this before, characterized by the desperation and terror of slack officers. But those meetings had been about minor things: circulation of subversive materials, or of failures to participate in patriotic programs. Gowon was definitely worse than merely slack.

“I just thought we could speak more comfortably one to one.” Gowon said.

Finally Inspector Kimani seemed finished with tormenting Gowon. “Let us cut through to the heart of the matter. You have allowed Adjar to fester. Your tanks all lay forgotten in depots; across the defensive line your guns have been left ajar in seemingly random sectors with little strategic forethought, and the men and women sleep away the days without nearing their pillboxes. Static defenses have been rusted and crippled by who knows how many seasons of rain, without a hint of repair. A week ago, Military Council General Order 43 declared that the borders were to be garrisoned through two twelve-hour rotations.”

“The Military Council’s General Orders are just a suggestion; comrade, I must gently remind you the Territorial Army answers to the Civil Council. I heard about this recent tour the KVW was doing of the military bases but certainly I didn’t think it was so pressing–”

Kimani interrupted him again, growing almost visibly furious at his rebuttals.

“Where are your troops Gowon? What are they doing? You won’t answer me but I have some ideas. Perhaps they working in your family’s quarry a few kilometers away? Perhaps they have left their uniforms behind to more easily travel where you need them for your black market. How do you prioritize their labor nowadays? More theft? Less theft?”

Major Gowon spoke with a clumsy, shifting pitch, like a weeping child screaming at a parent. He avoided Kimani’s eyes and gesticulated with zeal. “I gave up the quarries during the nationalization! I am a member of the Council myself and I resent these unwarranted and unverifiable accusations. I have had trouble with incompetent subordinates and unmotivated troops! But I assure you, everything here is under control!”

Kimani replied with unconfined scorn. “Under whose control? I have traveled through your defenses, where you’ve let your troops fester in barracks, receiving almost training and performing no drills or defensive rotations. I traveled through the city, where supplies earmarked for you continue to flow, and yet where they end up I am not sure. I see no advancement or improvement in this place. Except of course within the grounds of your lovely estate. I love the smell of fresh paint; you surely have your priorities in order.”

While Gowon further choked and shifted in his chair, a young woman entered the room from the adjacent hall, holding a thick folder full of documents in her hands. Encountering guests in the office, she stood at the threshold and stared, seeming oblivious to what was happening. Madiha thought the woman was probably a part of the intelligence or logistics staff: she wore her strawberry-colored hair long and flowing, in a casual fashion, and she wore a mid-length skirt with her military uniform instead of the standard infantry pants.

Major Gowon gave her an impish look, and then gestured the Inspector toward her.

“Look, here comes my incompetent Chief of Staff now. Parinita, it appears your poor oversight has brought shame upon Battlegroup Ox once again. Explain the rusty defenses and the missing supplies to the Inspector, and to me for good measure, post-haste!”

Parinita’s eyes drew suddenly wide.

Her light honey-brown face flushed a bloody red. She stared at the Inspector in horror, several times trying to defend herself but making only small sounds through quivering lips.

Madiha felt her own heart burn. A fury built within her that was barely restrained.

She uttered the first words of a vicious attack on Major Gowon for his craven cowardice, but she halted her assault instantly when Kimani shot her a glare instead.

Madiha was paralyzed. Rarely did the Inspector become infuriated with her.

Thankfully Kimani then turned her attention to Gowon once again.

“You will not escape my wrath by throwing your staff into the open jaws, Gowon. It is you and you alone upon whom I lay down judgment for this mess. My division, the 3rd KVW Motor Rifles Division, is inspecting all of the Dominance as we speak for standards compliance. You know the punishment for military incompetence, Gowon, and it is light, considering; but how does treason sound? That rusty barbed wire and sleeping garrison looks like treason, and it is not the only treasonous thing. You have run wild since the demilitarization policies, contrary to their stated intent — more corruption has bloomed under them than ever before. But of course, you knew this. You were one of the architects!”

“This is outrageous,” Gowon mumbled, his tongue tying as he spoke, “Accusing me of treason? Of theft from the people? Extreme; the KVW have become extremists!”

Parinita remained frozen still at the door, and Gowon pulled on the neck of his uniform as though it were it that which would bring him to death, and not the rifles of a KVW squad.

Gowon was poised to continue, but a rattling atop his desk gave him pause.

In the distance Madiha heard a rising cacophony of harsh and recurring noise that startled Parinita. Gowon’s secretary clung to the door frame as though she expected an earthquake. The Major looked around in confusion. Suddenly a series of blasts boomed somewhere far away, creeping closer and closer, as if sweeping across the landscape.

A picture fell from a weak hanger on the wall and burst on the floor.

As the blasts abated the room grew silent for a moment.

“What was that?” Kimani seized Major Gowon by the neck of his shirt.

“Is there anything else I need to be aware of Major? Strip-mining? Clearing yourself grounds for a park using earmarked explosives?” Madiha shifted her chair back from the Inspector, nearly falling over and bewildered by the sudden fury.

Major Gowon cried and croaked. “I don’t know what is happening! Those sounded like shells falling!”

~ ~ ~

A strong wind made waves across the tall grass. Stretched before him was a vast expanse of green field and rolling woodland that separated Ayvarta from Cissea.  He sat with his legs hanging over the gap at the edge of a defensive trench, on the second line of border defenses. This trench was dug right on the first hump in a series of little hills. These gentle slopes served as a good defensive position – at their crest there was enough flat land to establish a long defensive line and a few barracks buildings. From this first crest, a steeper hill lead to the true summit with the HQ building and the divisional depots.

Even on this first and most minor incline, he felt like he was high up over the earth.

His mind was blank as he peered over the empty border.

At his back was his rifle, a 130 centimeter length of wood and iron, fed by stripper clips that filled the pouches of his garrison belt; in his hands was a can of watery curry, a disposable spoon and a piece of round flatbread. He ate, and he felt at peace with the landscape. It was almost like he wasn’t a soldier. Only a boy with a rifle and uniform.

He thought of nothing at the time, nothing about the field, nothing about the trench.

For him, the border guard with Battlegroup Ox was idle work — whereas before he had been merely idle. There was more to do, but not for him. He was never assigned the special tasks given to others, where they would go in trucks deeper into Adjar, and stay in the city for a few days, before returning with a pocketful of paper money and clandestine purchases from the markets. He did not drive a tank so he did not receive odd jobs hitching heavy equipment to and fro, using the idle war machines as tractors for who knows what.

Owing to the distance of the Adjar Dominance from Solstice, he had never even seen a KVW political officer. Owing to the peaceful relationship between the southern politicians and his commandant, he did not even catch wind of anything suspicious.

He in fact knew little about politics, save that the nation took good care of him.

He did not mind any of it. It was all for others to worry about.

After all he had joined the army just to get away from things. This was more peace than he had ever had with his family back in Shaila. He welcomed a blank mind, a cool spring wind and a full plate of warm food.

Just as he started to doze off, he heard multiple voices calling down to him.

“Hujambo, Adesh!”

“Hujambo!” He shouted back, raising his arm lazily to greet his friends.

Two of Adesh’s squadmates approached the second defensive line and sat with him, ration boxes in their hands. Nnenia sat to his left, hastily removing her cap and quickly ripping open the ration box and picking through its contents. Eshe sat to his right, extracting his food from its box as delicately as he could, carefully cutting open the cans, trying to get nothing on his spotless green uniform. They ate quietly together, staring at the fields every so often. Though they sometimes traded ration contents, this time they were satisfied with what they got. Like a single mind they ate and spoke only in common gestures, nodding and smiling.

When they had picked their ration boxes clean the trio lay back against the tank traps behind them.

Language returned to them, and it was almost enough to make Adesh groan.

“You need to tie up your hair at least, if you’re not gonna cut it.” Eshe said, taking stray tufts of Adesh’s hair in hand to demonstrate how long it had gotten. Eshe was a devout soldier, with hair cut to regulation and his uniform worn the precise way the handbook taught.

Adesh quietly pulled a length of cloth from a pouch and tied his hair into a ponytail, and Eshe seemed pleased enough with the result. Nnenia quietly played with her own hair, which was regulation length, cut to a level just above the shoulder, but much messier and wavier than Adesh’s.

“Why does it matter?” Nnenia said curtly, staring at Eshe.

Eshe put his hands to his hips. “You’re another one who should consider a cut.”

Adesh laughed. “You two remind me of my old house.”

“Ouch.” Nnenia replied. “Sorry.”

“No, not in a bad way!” Adesh quickly corrected.

They laughed. Slothfully the trio fell on their backs, Adesh hand in hand with the others, staring up at the sky.

It was hot and sunny, but a strong breeze kept the weather fairly kind to them.

“I heard the officers are considering putting a film on today.” Nnenia said.

“What kind of film?” Eshe asked.

“I heard it is a new picture, made specifically for the army.” Nnenia said.

“Probably a historical picture then, to teach us something.”  Adesh said.

Nnenia nodded. “It is – I heard that the film is a history of the Nocht Federation.”

“I heard the Princess fled to Nocht during the revolution.” Adesh said. “That’s all I know about Nocht.”

“Royalty.” Eshe looked like he wanted to spit in disgust. “The Princess even changed her name to something more Nocht-like after. Mary Trueday I think. Did not stick by us at all. I bet she’s really pampered over in Nocht, telling everyone some sob story about the communists chasing her out.”

“She was a kid back then, even younger than us,” Adesh said, “I wouldn’t judge her too harshly.”

“In any case, maybe the film will clear all of this up for us.” Nnenia said.

Before they could grow any more comfortable, a belligerent foot kicked heaps of dirt and dust from higher up the trench on top of them. They bolted up to their feet and found an officer waylaying them, and struggled to stand at attention while coughing sand through their noses and wiping their burning eyes. The Officer was livid, and when he made his way to them he seized Adesh by his jacket, with his eyes bloodshot and teeth bared.

“Did you not see the KVW liaison car that passed, soldier? Did you dismiss its significance, or are you just completely daft? Are you truly so devoid of wit that you can’t determine the proper conduct during an inspection, soldier? Do you want your platoon to suffer the consequences of your laying about, soldier?”

“No sir!” Adesh said, his voice trembling. “I did not understand the significance sir!”

The Officer pushed him aside and off his feet, nearly throwing him into the trench. “Then you are well and truly incompetent, private! What is your name? What are all of your names? And what made you think you could spend the day merrily laying on your backs while the KVW’s eyes are on us?” He cast mad eyes around the group, Nnenia and Eshe paralyzed before him, and Adesh shaking visibly as he stood anew from the ground.

“We thought we were still clear and at ease, sir!” Adesh said.

“You thought wrong, Private!” the officer shouted, “Nobody is at ease during a KVW inspection, not you, not I, not even the ghosts of your ancestors. I want all three of you dimwits’ full names, right–”

A sound louder than his voice drowned out the Officer’s words.

All across the line, the carnage played out too quickly.

Adesh saw it coming first; he did not know enough to identify the object but he was certain it would crash near them, and that he he had no hope of avoiding it. There was no time even to call out in alarm. Meters behind them a column of dust and a plume of smoke rose from the ground amidst a deafening explosion; like dolls their bodies were thrown out in the air. Adesh landed inside the trench, slamming his back hard against the wooden support. Around him the whole world twisted and quaked, while thundering blasts near and far kept him deafened and dumb. Across his head and spine he felt intense, paralyzing pain.

He thought he heard a voice call out, Artillery! in the midst of the chaos.

He then thought he heard the voice scream in pain.

Disoriented, he pulled himself blindly over dirt and rock, up against the wooden frame of the trench and over its edge. Grit and grime covered his eyes and he could hardly open them. When he did he saw columns of dirt and smoke and dark, rolling clouds around him before the grime and blood forced him blind anew.  He dimly heard a second round of explosions and let himself drop back into the trench. They sounded far off but he knew it was his rattled ears tricking him. He was in every way disoriented.

Nnenia and Eshe were still out there somewhere.

With his arm up against it he pulled himself along the wooden frame, following the trench. He felt each new blast as though it had fallen atop him, heat and force sweeping over him deadly close. He crept along the trench with his life in the balance.

Every so often his heart would skip a beat as a shell hit.

For a moment he would pause as though he were dead.

Shaking, he would trudge on.

Behind him he felt the heat closer than ever, and his whole body seized up. He felt flames trailing along him as though he were caught in a path of coals. Something had blown inside the trench and he screamed, feeling an indistinct agony all across his body. In a panic he pulled himself forward faster, not knowing the condition of any specific part of himself, until he hit a wall dividing the trenches. Adesh laid back against it and with shaking hands he reached back to his feet, across his legs, around his waist and chest.

It was all there. He breathed deep.

Mustering all of his strength, he pulled himself up over the trench wall. He felt hard ground against his knees, and forced himself upright and into a run over the hill. He heard other boots trampling around him, and a distant voice shouting “Retreat up the hill, abandon the trenches.” When he opened his eyes briefly there were people around him, also running and leaping over the trenches and foxholes along the hill, and toward its crest. They abandoned the defensive lines and rushed up this first climb.

He could still hardly see and only stopped when he ran into someone.

He could not hear their voice at first, he only felt himself in a person’s grip.

A canteen was emptied over his face. The cold water shocked him.

“You need to move from here. Can you understand me? Are you injured?”

Adesh had made it to the first crest, past the few broken-down pillboxes and sandbag redoubts that made up the final line of defense before the barracks and warehouses, and before the second hill up to the HQ. He stood stock still, his ears still ringing but his hearing slowly returning. His whole body was shaking and he had some trouble breathing. In front of him a medic assessed his condition and kept a hand on him to keep him from falling.

He snapped his fingers and spoke slowly to Adesh, and cleaned his eyes so that he could see again. He applied a light dressing to his forehead to stop the blood.

Around him soldiers rushed to the hill he abandoned and hastily established a battle line. Trucks towed guns into position, and teams established machine guns and sniper posts.

“I see them!” someone shouted, “soft-skin vehicles, moving out onto the field!”

“Are you ok?” the medic said again.

“I’m fine,” Adesh stammered. “Where do I go?”

The medic nodded to him with relief in his eyes. “Run uphill, back up the road, and join up with the reserve to get your orders.” He said. He pointed out the main road uphill from the defensive line at the first crest, leading closer to the headquarters.

When Adesh started on his way the medic rushed to the next nearest arriving soldier to continue his work. A woman had arrived up the hill and nearly ran into a towing truck and fallen over. The medic helped her out of the way of the defenders, and applied the same tests to her, snapping his fingers, speaking slowly, and pouring water just like before.

There were more medics and more people arriving every moment, and a disparity between those fighting and those out. He felt like a ghost walking, light and strange, as though his feet could not touch the ground. He heard the retort of guns, these ones deadly close, and he flinched and nearly threw himself to the ground.

Then it dawned on him that those sounds were his guns, their guns, the guns of the Ayvartan people. People like Nnenia and Eshe. Nnenia and Eshe.

Adesh broke into a run for the nearest crowd of people he could see along a branching road leading to the barracks buildings and the little plazas between each, with a flagpole proudly displaying the 9-headed snakes, the Hydras, which symbolized the struggles of the revolution and the freedom of the people, curled around a hammer and sickle.

He walked dazedly beneath the flag pole, toward the crowd along the barracks.

“Adesh! It’s Adesh! He’s alive! Thank the spirits!”

Adesh saw hands waving in front of him and in an instant found himself embraced by Nnenia and Eshe, each one kissing one of his cheeks and throwing their hands around him. They cried and pressed themselves on him, shouting that they were worried and that the artillery had struck for so long, and that there were this and that many dead and wounded. He was so stunned that he cried with them, unable to express with words or expressions the relief he felt. Only with muted tears. They were his alive; his friends were alive.

At no point did Adesh consider that it was not only himself, or his close friends, but his entire division, his entire army, his entire country, that had come under attack.

~ ~ ~

Madiha stood tense in front of the divisional tank depots, waiting for Gowon’s orderlies to open the locked shutter doors. They fumbled with their keys and Madiha could not blame them for their anxiety. Behind the little crowd stood Inspector Kimani, wearing a face as though sculpted from stone, never flinching even as the shells exploded in the distance over the lower hill, even as they heard the cracking retorts from distant rifles.

A battle, a real battle with an enemy military force, was unfolding close by.

Within this cacophony the party at the depots worked in silence, carrying out an inspection as though in a world that was not yet at war.

Madiha took up her pen and pad once again to take note of the inventory, knowing exactly why the Inspector had insisted on coming here.

Gowon also knew. He had turned as pale as a Nochtish man. He was quivering in place.

Finally the door was unlocked. The orderlies pulled up the shutter enough for Parinita and another man to crawl under, and they pulled the door the rest of the way by a chain, and secured it. Inside the depot were dozens of discrete aisles that should have been crowded with lines of tanks, but instead they saw only shelves of spare parts and tools, pools of oil, discarded old engine blocks and cannon housings.

There was not a tank in sight.

“Where did you send them, Gowon?” Kimani calmly asked.

“They are refitting,” he explained desperately, “I sent them to Bada Aso for refitting.”

She pressed on. “You have contacts there who work in machining, don’t you?”

Gowon paused, and then stamped the ground in anger.

“I don’t have to suffer this from you Kimani!” He shouted. “I don’t require you to lecture me on ethics and disclosures, I don’t need you looking through all my family and friends! I’m a high ranking member of the civil council and the head of this battlegroup! The military council has no right to come here and–”

Before anyone could gasp or cry or even conceive of what was happening, Kimani had already drawn her revolver and she had already shot.

Madiha did not flinch or move.

At point blank range the heavy round from the high caliber revolver overturned Gowon like a pillar, and burst open the back of his head onto a nearby wall. Only once the streaks of gore had hit and drip to the floor did anyone come to recognition. The orderlies tripped over their own feet in shock and horror. Parinita screamed and covered her ears as though she would go deaf from a noise that had already gone. Gowon was dead.

Madiha knew that Justice had been done in the only way the situation would allow.

She took her pen and put it down neatly and simply: On the 18th of the Aster’s Gloom, Major Elijah Gowon was summarily executed by KVW Inspector General Chinedu Kimani for misuse of army materiel, misappropriation of the people’s funds, capitalistic abuses, and incompetence in the face of the enemy. 

She paused after, contemplating what she had written. Incompetence in the face of the enemy. Distantly behind her the guns were still roaring. For the first time in years and years, a high-ranking officer was executed in the midst of a battle. All of the implications of what was happened, what had happened, seemed to fail to penetrate to Madiha.

“Madiha, we have no time to lose.” Kimani said. “I’m putting you in command of Ox.”

“Yes ma’am.” Madiha said. Somehow the words had not registered.

She could not entirely grasp the concept of what she doing. It was just another order from Kimani that she had to obey as an agent of the KVW. She did not interrogate it.

Kimani continued. “Elements of my division are scattered around Adjar. Some are close. I will contact them, and they will help us evacuate. But you must keep the enemy back until then with whatever we have here. I need time to clear out Gowon’s headquarters. We can’t have any sensitive information falling into enemy hands. This is it, Madiha. It is what we feared might happen. Do you understand?” Madiha nodded her head solemnly, and Kimani nodded back. The Inspector turned her attention to Parinita, staring dumbly still at Gowon’s corpse. “You, girl, brief Captain Nakar on Ox’s disposition.”

Parinita blinked hard in confusion. Madiha took her hand and pulled her along. Kimani rounded up the rest of the orderlies and they parted ways. Kimani and the orderlies ran to the looming headquarters building as fast as they could, but Madiha and Parinita walked, a world apart still. In command of Ox, she had said. Madiha turned over in her head what this meant and what she was doing. In her own strange way, she was broken by shock.

Together she and Parinita rushed all the way down to the lower crest, overlooking the field and forest dividing them from Cissea (Nocht), where a semicircular battle line had formed to contain the enemy advance. Anti-tank guns, long-barreled artillery guns and heavy machine guns had been pushed to the edge of the crest, and stood just behind the old line of abandoned pillboxes. Old concrete guard posts and hill edge barriers provided cover from which they could shoot down to the field and the outskirts of the forest. A skeleton crew held the line, men and women enough only to man the guns and shoot down the hill if necessary – a force that might easily be displaced by sustained attack. Thankfully there was a lull now in the fighting. There were bodies of the enemy lying dead on the field.

“Parinita, is it? What is our disposition?” Madiha asked.

Her words sounded distant to herself; she could only imagine how much farther and more dream-like they must have been to the secretary. Parinita stared at Madiha’s face blankly for a moment, their eyes locked to each other, and then she began to speak, droning in the voice of one still half lost in their own mind. “Ox is the Battlegroup size formation responsible for the Adjar Dominance. Under the edicts of the civilian council and the Demilitarization policy we are limited to no more than 100,000 standing troops, 3000 guns, 2000 tanks, a limited officer corps, assorted staff and logistical personnel and vehicles–”

Madiha seized her by the shoulders and stood nose to nose with her.

“How much do we have within grasp and how much out of it?” She said.

Parinita shivered, and she looked down at her hands as though counting something with her fingers, but the fidgeting seemed all to be an act. When she responded she was almost in tears. “I don’t know. A division-sized group is supposed to hold this base – 10,000 troops, but not all of them are here, many were given other jobs, or allowed unspecified leave or to enter a reserve if they performed work that Major Gowon approved of.”

Madiha looked around herself, at the crowds around the distant barracks buildings, at the crews at the hill. There were probably no more than a thousand rifles, if that.

They had trucks and half-tracks scattered around the base, many of which were now towing artillery guns to positions behind the battle line. They had formed an impromptu line long enough to cover the expected approaches toward the base, and dispersed enough that enemy artillery could not destroy all their fighting positions– but there were still less than 30 guns across the battle line, and of those almost all were direct fire guns.

There were a few machine gunners scattered around with a stock of ammo and a gunner beside each. From her vantage she could see only a few mortars in support.

And beyond that there were no armored vehicles at hand – even if there were, they were likely to be Goblin tanks, too lightly armed and armored to make any difference.

Madiha felt herself coming close to shaking and had to steel herself from it. Washing over her like ice-cold water was the realization that she was in charge now of an army that was not here, where she needed it. She slowly let go of Parinita, and approached the guns.

“Who commands here?” Madiha shouted, approaching the nearest fighting position.

A tall young man, bronze as a statue, looked back at her from one of the 76mm guns, leaving the protection of its gun shield to run back to her in a half crouch. He saw the Hydra-headed KVW insignia on her uniform and straightened himself out, saluting her with a sudden grim composure. “I’m Lieutenant Purana, ma’am. Junior Lieutenant, actually. We’ve gotten, umm, mixed up, you could say. I’m not supposed to be in command of the defense but I rallied the people in my barracks to man this position and a few others along the battle line here. We have managed to repel some of the enemy, ma’am.”

“A notably good idea within this chaos. What is happening?” Madiha asked.

“From what I understand at around–” He paused, and seemed to wrack his brain.

“You needn’t develop a timeline for me.” Madiha pressed.

“Yes ma’am.” He looked relieved. “Enemy forces targeted the border defenses with artillery fire; they must have thought it was manned, but in reality there was almost no one there in the trenches and pillboxes. Just some poor trainees and privates having their lunch in the sun! Then it was all thrown into confusion, we had little training on how to handle this, and we expected Major Gowon or some of his staff to come, but nobody did. Our barracks was near one of the truck depots, so when we heard the blasts, some of us went out there, and we came back, and organized bringing guns to the hill with our trucks and manning them, since the ones already positioned here were rusted and useless. We developed this position, and it is haphazard, but we are doing our best, ma’am.”

Madiha nodded. They had done a good job.

“How many comrades do you have in position now?”

“On the line? About a hundred of us. Across the base? Can’t really say. My barracks held about,” he looked at his fingers, counting in his mind perhaps, “two hundred, and we split up the work. People were always coming and going ma’am, so I don’t know for sure.”

“I commend you.” Madiha said. She fixed her eyes on him so that he would understand the seriousness with which she spoke. “You have done quite well. I will make sure you no longer occupy a junior position if we survive. However, I am now taking command.”

“I have no complaints ma’am, but,” He scratched his hair, and sighed audibly, “We were trained to say to KVW that our forces are part of the civilian volunteer army and cannot be commanded by the Military Council. I am relieved to see real army here.” He paused, and Madiha could not help but feel a little disturbed that he considered her the ‘real army’ and not himself. What did he think he was? She could hardly believe what sort of politics was at work here.

“Then you have said it, but the facts remain unchanged. I’m Captain Nakar, KVW Civilian Liaison.”

“Well, you do occupy a space between the two councils, so that works for me. Just, you know, if any of the Civil Council folks object, I’m going to have to say that you coerced me, to preserve my rank.”

Madiha wanted to scream at him, but instead nodded her head in silence and walked past him, out to the edge of the gun line, to see things more closely for herself.

She looked down off the crest of the hill. Most of the trenches in the slope below her had been reduced to splinters and chunks of concrete, and to mounds of upturned dirt, pockmarked with dozens of craters. Despite this she believed that it had not been a fierce shelling. It had been sustained, but the impacts had been small and far apart and did not deliver as much power as they could. It was a hasty and poorly planned attack.

Madiha tapped a woman behind one of the guns on the shoulder and silently demanded her binoculars, which the woman quickly and clumsily gave up. Madiha raised them to her eyes and peered beyond the trenches, to the field dividing Ayvartar and Cissea in this sector.

She saw unmoving bodies in the grass and the woods.

She also saw a couple of flatbed cars and trucks, abandoned across the field. Some were truly wrecked, others merely pockmarked with bullets. A few still burned brightly.

“What happened out there? I assume those are enemy dead?”

“After the artillery, some soft vehicles and foot soldiers charged in to attack us.” Lt. Purana said. “Motorized assault troops I suppose. They ran into all of the traps we laid in the field. Ran into a decade’s old minefield, fell into ditches, sunk in mud-holes. It bought us some more time. We grouped up and opened fire from here before they could bring up their engineers, and they turned tail and ran back again – a lot of them across more traps.”

“So in all, their first artillery attack and the charge after that were wasted.”

“Yes ma’am. I don’t know whether they overestimated or underestimated us. I think it might’ve been some combination of the two – they crush our unused trench, but run over mines? Makes no sense to me, but I’m not gonna second-guess our good fortune.”

Madiha looked again. She focused on the bodies in the grass, the men (for the Nocht army never allowed women into battle) sent to charge the minefield. They were thick with blood and their own gore but she knew something about them was off. She wondered, primarily, what the color of their uniforms would have been before they died, and became soaked red and brown in the blood and muck. Madiha suspected they were not Nochtish.

“Those could be Cisseans.” Madiha said. “I believe deployed Cissean forces to launch the initial attack and then to absorb our fire. This would explain the situation.”

“Ancestors defend,” Lt. Purana said, “So the actual Nocht forces may be–”

“Biding their time. Perhaps organizing their armor to assail us. That means we still have time – but that the worst is yet to come. What is the disposition of our other forces? You say that these people here are just your own barracks-mates? Where are the others?”

“Everyone is in a sorry state right now ma’am, I’m very sorry. I’m not entirely sure. I think some of the other officers in the division were organizing for a counterattack?”

“That would be ridiculous right now.” Madiha said. She turned her head. “Parinita!”

Behind her, Parinita seemed like she would fly off the ground in fear when called. She had been standing back from the line and observing bashfully. She nodded her head in acknowledgment when Madiha called, and stood in attention as the Captain spoke.

“Spread the word around the base. I am in command.” Madiha said. She began to gesticulate alongside her orders, pointing out the positions and weapons she was referencing as she spoke. “Major Gowon has been removed by the KVW for incompetence. We are in a state of emergency. Half the troops will organize to defend this hill, the others will rush into the HQ and help Kimani evacuate materiel and destroy intelligence that could fall into enemy hands. I want all 122mm and 152mm guns we can muster formed into a support battery under my command. I want all 45mm and smaller anti-tank guns in ambush positions at the rear echelon, protecting the artillery batteries. All 76mm guns and available machine guns must be brought forward and organized across this line on a wide front. Each fighting position at least 5 meters apart from the other. Did you get all that?”

Parinita looked dumbstruck by the orders at first, but then she nodded quickly and saluted, standing stiff and tall with her chest stuck out. Was she trying to make up for earlier? “Yes ma’am, Captain Nakar! I have a good memory,” she said, stuttering her words. “I will muster everyone, Captain, ma’am,” she added in a loud, strained voice.

She then took off to spread the word, as instructed.

Madiha spotted her stopping in front of a medic for a few minutes, and then taking off for the barracks. The Medic, too, ran in a different direction, alerting others along his way.

Everything seemed to be moving now. Madiha sighed with relief.

“Did you get that as well?” She asked the forces around her.

Behind each anti-tank gun and the few machine guns, there was a concerted nodding.

~ ~ ~

Parinita’s heart was racing as fast as her feet.

She ran farther uphill, climbing a gentle slope from the first crest and up to the next closest barracks that she could spot. It seemed empty – so she ran further up to the next one. She reasoned then that the first barracks from the crest of the hill was the one she saw deployed to the battle line. Her legs quickly felt sore from the effort.

Her mind raced too.

Everything around her was at once collapsing but finally falling into place as well. All of the cryptic things she had been told, all of the expectations that she had tried hard to forget. It was all catching up to her again. She and Madiha both had to survive this. She had seen the omens in Madiha’s eyes. She thought she would never see those eyes; and that she would never see them facing death. Those eyes were at once so alien but so familiar.

She had been taught to find those sorrowful eyes.

Like in the old legends, that was her long-forgotten fate. This was not just fancy or imagination. Seeing the fire in those eyes told her it was real; everything had been real.

She had work to do.

A series of barracks spaces were scattered all around the base with their own depots. A network of roads ringing Gowon’s base connected them. It had all been terribly haphazard and had never been corrected – the outpost was ancient, and they had built over it and built over it for generations. Some of the buildings standing here were built before the revolution. Some had been laid before anyone even considered revolution.

Parinita was a Staff Secretary or Chief of Staff for the Battlegroup, a rank created by the Civil Council to help civilians find palatable military work, without feeling tied down to combat and danger, and to help the main army become a more civilian enterprise.

She had received a bare minimum of training, and she could run a good mile.

At the second barracks, she was out of breath, her legs hurt, and her throat and chest felt raw and overworked; but she had run for ten minutes up the slope without stopping. A crowd was gathering outside the buildings and a crate full of rifles and clips was being parceled out. Parinita shambled toward an officer and bent double, gasping for breath.

“Staff Secretary?” asked the female officer. “Where is Major Gowon?”

“Relieved of command.” Parinita said simply. “Our new commander due to the emergency situation will be Captain Madiha Nakar of the KVW. Before you ask, I support the KVW’s decision, and without them, we will not survive this day. We will cooperate.”

The officer quieted for a moment, thinking, and then said, “Nakar? I feel like I have heard that name. I trust you, Maharani; what does Captain Nakar wish for us to do?”

“She has specific orders we must carry out before the enemy musters again.”

Parinita relayed the orders quickly, and added an additional order that she felt would improve the situation – she asked for radios to be distributed to key personnel.

On her orders the soldiers took several radio boxes out of storage, and completed the set with the additional emergency radio from a barracks lockbox, setting the latter outside the barracks for Parinita. She sent a private from the crowd to deliver some radios to Madiha’s line, and sent others with similar deliveries to the artillery battery being organized in the rear, and a last box to be taken to the headquarters building. Runners were sent to the other barracks to get everyone to distribute their own radios as quickly as possible across their own officers and their own parts of the defensive line – this would allow for the transmitting of orders at a far faster rate than Parinita running across the base.

Soon she had Madiha and the officers on the radio, while a few troops waited for orders around them, and the rest ferried crates of rifles and ammunition or helped push guns into place. Everyone as moving and there was direction and order returning to the base.

“This was a perfect idea, Parinita.” Madiha said, her voice crackling over the radio speaker, a small box that was raised to one’s ear to hear the speaker on the other end. “We have begun to see surreptitious enemy movements along the front, and smoke from the forest. Enemy armor will be moving in soon. We need to form that artillery battery and retaliate soon. It is our only chance against the forces they deployed. Our goal is merely to hold out until Inspector Kimani deems it safe to abandon this position and evacuate.”

“Yes ma’am.” Parinita said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

“How are things moving along around you?”

Across the road Parinita saw the trucks advancing at a more expeditious rate.

“They are moving, Captain.” Parinita said.

“Has anyone heard from Kimani yet? How long until they clear the HQ?”

“One moment.” Parinita said. She turned the dial on the big metal radio box, switching from Madiha’s channel to those of the runner’s box she sent to the headquarters. “This is the Staff Secretary, what is the status of the HQ?” She issued her requests and there was a moment of silence and a bit of crackling noise, before a voice replied to her, sounding rushed and stressed. Parinita listened to the HQ units, barely able to parse their shouting over the poor quality of the audio and the heavy stress that was evident in their voice.

She nodded to herself and reported back to Madiha. “It will take time.”

“Then we must make a concerted effort to hold.” Madiha said.

Parinita stepped away from the radio, ceding the speaker to an officer. No sooner had she given the speaker away that she saw a cloud of dust and smoke suddenly rise from the direction of the defensive line. She took the speaker box and put it to her ear again.

“Captain, are you alright, is that–?”

Successive explosions roared across the defensive line, throwing up fire and debris.

Madiha replied in a rush. “Artillery attack; is the counter battery ready?”

Parinita snatched a pair of binoculars from the dumbfounded officer at her side and peered out across the road, where a group of 152mm howitzers – long-barreled cannons with wider tubes that bore heavy rounds and fired overhead at an angle – were setting up behind a building for cover against the enemy’s own guns. They established themselves and Parinita called them quickly on the radio. She then switched back to Madiha.

“They’re ready Captain, awaiting firing information. Contact them directly.”

Moments later Parinita looked back to the battery with her binoculars as they adjusted their elevation, turned the gun further to their right, and opened fire. With those bellowing retorts, Ayvarta had begun to fight back, their own artillery likely causing the first Nocht casualties of what she believed would become a long, bloody war. In a sense, all of this had been made known to her long ago – she had only forgotten, when she was a child and wanted to get away, until those eyes told her again. She clasped her hands and prayed while the soldiers scrambled around her. She prayed for Madiha to survive everything.

~ ~ ~

Madiha hid behind the rubble of one of the concrete guard posts near the defensive line. It had been shattered instantly by a direct hit from an enemy shell moments ago. Unlike the scattered artillery in the first attack, this one was more spirited, with shells falling consistently and by the dozen, but the majority of the blasts simply pitted the hillside. Despite its power Nochtish artillery had a deficiency in range when compared to Ayvartan cannons: Madiha knew she could pinpoint and destroy the artillery positions given a little more time, a battery of her own, and of course, that she survived the barrage.

Around her the machine gunners and cannon operators hunkered down and prayed. There was little protection from the artillery fire sporadically hitting the line save for its inaccuracy. Already a cannon was in pieces thirty meters from Madiha’s impromptu redoubt, and she saw bodies cooked around it. A shell had fallen on top of them.

But those deaths were not without their value – she thought she knew now where the enemy’s artillery batteries were located and she was almost ready to counter.

All she needed was for her own batteries to pick up their pace and follow her instructions.

Far behind her another shell landed, and she felt a wave of heat and bits of flying dust.

Another guard post crumbled under the blast.

Madiha pulled out her compass, and held the radio speaker box to her ear, calling the gunners.

“Ready for coordinates, ma’am!” They replied.

“Load High Explosive rounds and follow my directions, then fire with all available guns.” Madiha said. She then gave them the coordinates that she had thought up, using known map sectors; she put down the radio and looked out toward her own defensive line.

All of her crews were still cowering.

“Enemy forces are firing explosive shells aimed at destroying the pillboxes, edge barriers and guard posts,” she shouted out to her crews, “they are inaccurate and you will not be killed except by a direct hit on your position! Slowly and calmly relocate yourself and your weapons away from the concrete barriers! Crouch low to the ground and keep as still as possible while fighting. Maintain a distance of 5 meters or more from other friendly positions. This will prevent multiple crews from being hit at once! Nochtish guns have lower accuracy and range than our own. You can survive this day if you follow my orders!”

As she shouted this several more shells fell around the line, most of them many meters away on the slope below them, tearing out chunks of the earth and smashing concrete pillboxes flat. One lucky shell landed a few meters in front of her, but the rubble between her and the blast shielded her from the heat and from the shell fragments. She peeked out after the blast and found an unoccupied pillbox smashed to pieces a few meters away.

Nocht was attacking the fortifications still – they must really have thought them all manned. This was a preparatory bombardment. They still had time to prepare!

Then Madiha finally heard the retort of an artillery battery close by: her own artillery guns had begun to fire using the solutions she had given them. She saw the red tracers briefly in the sky. Explosions rocked the forest a few kilometers out.

She had gotten a good bead on the enemy after observing their fire.

Almost a supernaturally good bead – she had never considered herself good at math or even terribly well educated in it at all, but she could tell almost everything about a gun and its fire by observing the situation enough. She knew her fire was accurate.

Her own batteries continued to work, dropping shells across the field into the forest. At first the enemy guns sounded and more shells started to crash around her position and several meters behind her cover. But the enemy’s fire started to slacken under the attack of her guns, until the Nochtish artillery quieted completely. Madiha hoped they had lost cannons or crew, and that they weren’t merely repositioning themselves.

Madiha raised her binoculars to her eyes and looked across the field, watching the edge of the forest and the tall, unkempt grass between the borders for signs of the enemy.

With her free hand she pulled up her radio and called Sergeant Bogana on the extreme end of the defensive line from her own position. The hillside was long enough that she could not verbally call from her end, the rightmost end, to the leftmost portion of the line – Sergeant Bogana had been one of Purana’s experienced men, and she had sent him to the other end with a hand-held radio in order to coordinate their defense of the line.

“I have lost a gun. How fares your side of the line, Lieutenant?” Madiha said.

“We lost a 76mm anti-tank gun, but we’re fine. We’ve got a half-dozen anti-tank guns and a couple of machine guns over here – but the troops have had very little training with them, I’m afraid. We’ll do our best to stop any attacks, commander.”

“Put it into perspective for me: how little training?”

“The Regional Council reduced the training times so much that I’ve barely been able to get two live fire exercises going in two months.” replied Bogana. “They know the basics of how to aim, load and shoot but they’ve hardly had time to practice in the field ma’am.”

“Grave, but not insurmountable as long as someone with experience can command them. Keep them together, Lieutenant. We can survive the day.”

Across the field the grass and shrubs, and the trees on the edge of the wood, began to sway and shake from some disturbance. Madiha focused her binoculars. She saw trees collapsing in the forest and earth being thrown up, and then she saw the black and grey exhaust blowing from the green woodland. She called out to the line for attention.

Grey steel hulks cleared the tree line and advanced across the field and toward the slope. These were Nocht M3 Hunter Assault Guns: boxy, rattling machines each mounting a somewhat short-barreled but still powerful 75mm cannon. While the placement of the cannon was unfortunate – it was stuck on one side of the chassis with limited traverse in any direction – the vehicle was well armored and had a low profile, lacking any semblance of a turret. It was also relatively quick on its tracks for an armored vehicle.

The armor advanced quickly in a tight formation, trampling the field, rolling harmlessly over the pits and the mines and the hidden barbed wire that had slowed and destroyed numerous light vehicles and infantry. They were charging the hill directly.

Madiha shouted, first to the line and then into the radio for the rest of the troops who were not within earshot, “Armor incoming! All guns to attention, begin loading armor-piercing high-explosive rounds and fire once the tanks come within 1000 meters of you! Aim for the sides of the tank or for the tracks! Avoid shooting directly at the front!”

As she shouted this the lead tank raised its gun and paused its march for a moment in order to fire a shot – a high explosive shell erupted from the gun and hurtled just past Madiha’s hiding spot and leveled a checkpoint building, casting debris over her gun line.

“Open fire!” She called out. In succession and all across the line her own guns sounded.

She heard the rhythmic cracking of the guns and saw her own shells suddenly flying the length of the field. Shells overflew the hill and crashed into the forest; they smote holes into the ground around the advancing tanks; several poorly angled shots crashed uselessly against the front and side armor of the vehicles, deflecting into the air.

Madiha counted eight tanks spread across the front, and their own fire soon joined hers in earnest. Their cannons had poor traverse, but more than enough to make up the quickly shrinking range, closing in under five hundred meters and firing their cruel shots in well-planned arcs. Enemy fire bounded off the side of hill, smashing against the crest, or roared overhead, taking chunks out of the road or the nearby buildings, showering the line with flying metal fragments and casting aside defenses in bursts of explosive force.

A series of explosions close and afar took Madiha’s senses.

She was neither hit nor even injured, but a gun near to her had gone up in smoke and flames, and she knew its crew to be dead or dying; and in that instant she also knew that an M3 had been penetrated and destroyed. She saw it go up in flames amid the grass.

This triggered something in her. Inside the cacophony of battle she felt her mind growing dull and her spirit seemed to leave her body as she realized who scored the kill.

For a strange moment, she saw through the eyes of Adesh Gurunath.

~ ~ ~

A shell landed five meters away. It hit the gun shield on a nearby cannon dead on and exploded, flinging the crew like pieces off an upturned game board. Nothing of the cannon or mount remained, all of it scattered to the air. Adesh felt the fragments of metal like hot needles falling all around him. They bit into his uniform and cut his cheek and neck.

He had wanted to weep, to crumple and beg for his life to some unseen force–

But in the same instant he grit his teeth and through hot tears he braced himself against his 76mm anti-tank gun. Lifting it by two long, metal carriage rods, he turned the piece along its side until the barrel of the gun pointed ahead of the advancing target.

He grew suddenly numb to the pain and fear.

Something was burning in him, something urged him forward.

He felt like crying, and he cried; but he also felt protected and led. Inspired.

“200 meters and closing in!” Adesh cried out, “Load AP!”

Nnenia adjusted the gun sight quickly while Eshe heaved the weighty armor-piercing shell and loaded it into the breech. Adesh and Nnenia readjusted the gun by lifting and swinging around its carriage again and again – the enemy tank kept moving.

Working as one they dropped the gun, and Eshe pulled the firing mechanism.

There was a thundering of metal and a kick back as the shell erupted from the gun and soared downhill, across hundreds of meters of the field, crashing directly through the side of the M3 assault gun. Penetrating the weaker side armor it detonated inside the hull; smoke blew from the crippled machine, and it later exploded in earnest, perhaps from abuse to its engine or to its ammunition compartment. The blast was loud enough to drown out the screaming of the enemy tanks’ own guns and the intermittent explosions across the defensive line, as if to declare the Ayvartan victory louder than that of the enemy.

Adesh, Nnenia and Eshe did not notice the explosion – by then they were readjusting their gun for the next shot as the assault guns drew into ever closer range, soon to be upon them if something was not done. They worked rapidly, with precision and confidence unknown to them before this crisis. Until today their training hours had been minimal.

All of them could feel it, something pulling at them, twisting their emotions, keeping them standing. They felt oddly familiar with war. Through the burning tears, their vision was clear; through the pain and exhaustion and nausea their bodies still moved. Adesh felt like he would collapse any second, like he had already passed the border between life and death in all but the action of dropping down. But his body did not quit him – he felt as though his soul, something indeterminate within, fought on, where he had given up.

The team turned the weapon, targeting the lead tank – Adesh felt a growing confidence in his knowledge of the gun. He felt like he had the blueprint right in his mind.

“300 meters!” He said with unnatural precision, “Load AP!”

Their gun was stationed on the far right of the line, and they had lost many comrades; from more populated sectors a renewed barrage began to cover for the missing fire from Adesh’s fallen allies. A tank that was fast approaching Adesh’s position was hit in the side of its gun mantlet, caving-in the steel and paralyzing the machine with a smoking wound to its head. They were whittling them down. Nnenia helped Eshe haul the next round, and Adesh fired it – they lacked crew discipline, switching roles constantly, but nonetheless their next shot burst through the tracks of one of the tanks causing it to lose control. Where it finally stopped, its fixed gun faced harmlessly away from the defensive line.

One by one the remaining assault guns began to fall, shells smashing tracks, striking cannon housings and warping the riveted armor, exploding in front of portholes and stunning crews. Smoke rose from the wrecks, and men escaped the hatches and were cut down by machine guns that rained fire on the grass without remorse.

“200 meters!” Adesh shouted again, “Load AP!”

Everyone loaded, aimed and took fire once again, sending a red tracer shell flying out, but the shock from their cannon was subsumed into a greater, sudden disturbance.

Their feet shook, the chains and sights on their gun rattled loudly; a blast several magnitudes larger than anything they could launch drowned out the entire battlefield.

Behind them a thick column of smoke rose around the headquarters building, fires raging behind the cloud. There were several detonations each louder than the next, followed by the pounding of rubble on concrete as the building completely collapsed and fell over the hedges. Flames danced within the cloud of dust and smoke at the top of the hill.

There was little time to take in the astonishing magnitude of the HQ’s demolition – the silence along the line lasted only a moment after the collapse, before they heard renewed cries and roaring engines from across the field. Dozens of gray uniformed riflemen and several additional assault guns charged toward the field, treading the safe routes cut through the traps by the first armored spearhead. Adesh and crew huddled behind their gun shield as the approaching riflemen took quick shots between their charges.

Adesh felt the strange fire in him going out.

He began to shake, weary and unused to battle.

Though he reached in his mind for that experience he had before, it slowly left him.

“900 meters,” he mumbled, stammering, his voice failing him, “load High-Explosive.”

Nnenia tried to lift the gun to move its barrel back in line with the approaching riflemen, but she hardly could. Eshe reached down into a big sack, and tugged on a heavy explosive shell, trying to lift it into the breech. “Adesh, help me with this,” Eshe cried, his hands and knees shaking, “I can barely move it, I’m sorry, I feel dizzy.”

Adesh’s thoughts grew more alien and distant. He could barely hear or speak anymore.

His guardian spirit had awoken and left him and he did not know.

~ ~ ~

“Captain? Captain, are you hurt?”

Madiha heard a sharp cracking noise deadly close to her, and jolted back to life, shaking as though experiencing a convulsion.

She looked in every direction, a sudden and nauseating panic overtaking her. Her eyes had not been her own and they still weren’t.

She heard Parinita’s voice, but in front of her she saw only carnage of ages past. A warlord in the savannah guiding his spearmen to battle against another tribe; a shaman, in a straw hut on a journey to the spirit world, seeing and tasting the war that his tribe was waging; a soldier in the pre-modern age, when Ayvarta first fought Lubon, who knew exactly how far every bit of his inaccurate grapeshot would go; and his subordinates below the ramparts, whose minds he manipulated to make them fiercer, to keep them from buckling as they charged out to the field, a vanguard sure to die against the line of muskets braced against them; and a little girl at the end of the Empire whose cursed eyes coordinated revolution across all of Ayvarta, as the socialist Hydra plan was put into place–

She grabbed hold of her head, grit her teeth and screamed.

“Captain!”

Her vision slowly cleared, and the pounding in her brains slowly subsided.

She was shaken violently out of her stupor when a high-explosive shell flew overhead and crashed several meters behind them, punching a hole into the road out to the headquarters building – of which nothing was left but a pillar of smoke.

Parinita huddled close to her, behind the rubble; after the shell struck, she rose from cover and put a round from an anti-tank rifle down the field, braced against the rocks. She cursed under her breath and dove behind cover again, working the bolt on the rifle.

“Captain, are you injured? I’ve been trying to cover you with this BKV,” she ran her hands along the BKV-28 anti-tank rifle, loading a round in frustration, “but I can’t stop them! And I think the Inspector is done with the demolition but I can’t get a hold of her!”

Madiha silently took the rifle from her hands and inspected it briefly. She peeked from her cover and looked out to the field, where the Nocht soldiers had begun a new charge. Many riflemen ran across the open field, only to step into mines or fall under the withering fire of the defensive line’s few remaining machine guns. The bodies were already piling. More successful were the men huddling behind a renewed assault gun charge, advancing on the line in the same route that the earlier, now broken spearhead had tread. They were around 500 meters in – and closing. At around 100 meters it would be their victory.

“Parinita, radio in a howitzer barrage on the field after I take this shot.” Madiha said.

Parinita nodded and took the radio from Madiha.

“Captain, you’re bleeding.” She said, in a stammering voice.

Madiha felt it then, a slick sensation across her upper lip and under her nose. She wiped her face with her hands, and found that her nose was bleeding. She felt no pain, no injury. “We will lament the lost fluid soon enough.” She said. “Be ready with that radio.”

Using the BKV’s bipod she braced the gun on the rubble and faced the lead tank in the new formation. There were no enhanced optics on the rifle, only fixed iron sights, a major failing of the BKV that was scarcely ever corrected – but Madiha knew just where to shoot. She had known it the second she touched the BKV, the instant she braced it on the rocks and looked down the irons toward the advancing armor. She pulled the trigger.

BKV rifles were long and clunky and made a lot of noise, but their shots went fast and they could cover this range easily. Madiha saw the effects of her attack almost instantly. The round pierced one of the road wheels, knocking it clean off the tank.

She reloaded quickly and fired again, this time through the track, splitting it.

The lead tank lost control and veered to its right, slamming into an adjacent vehicle.

Nocht’s spearhead slowed as the infantry following behind the knocked-out tanks had to scramble to find new cover, all the while the machine guns and AT guns on the hill took the opportunity to hone in on them and inflict more accurate fire. Parinita called in the fire mission, and Madiha was impressed by the thorough coordinates she gave.

Madiha heard the howitzers shooting from behind their lines and saw the shells fall around the infantry and assault guns. A hit across the lightly armored tops of the assault guns might have struck the engines dead-on and killed the machines immediately, but she could not hope for such accuracy – carnage was the more immediate goal.

Carnage, she got: the entire field went up in smoke and flames after the first few shells.

Madiha was taken aback by the ferocity of the blasts, a series of explosions all across the borderline from the field to the forest. They coincided with her fire mission, but her guns could not possibly have done this. There were massive explosions, like several dynamite charges going off at once, blasting the whole field between Ayvarta and Cissea; men butchered, turned to pieces instantly from underfoot; massive steel chunks from the assault guns flying through the air; deafening blasts and blinding flames swallowing the foot of the hill. It was as if hell itself had opened beneath the enemy, digging its demons a burning trench. Columns of fire streaked across the field. It was a horrific show.

“What was that?” Parinita cried, but Madiha only knew this from reading her lips.

The moment her mouth opened another blast went off and silenced them both.

Madiha raised the radio to her mouth and shouted herself hoarse, calling for a retreat from the front line. She picked up the BKV, took Parinita’s hand and made for the burnt-out guard post a few meters behind her. Ahead she saw trucks coming down the road, led by a KVW half-track, and she ordered everyone to run for the safety of the trucks and prepare to evacuate. Then she heard someone behind her calling through a sudden silence.

“Captain Nakar, please wait!”

Madiha found a figure hailing her and moving in from the line of pillboxes, carrying a shovel and a green metal case. She stopped, and bid Parinita to stop as well. The figure was a familiar KVW engineer, dressed in the green KVW rifle squadron uniform but with a shawl and utility belt indicating engineer status. When she caught up with them, the engineer had a stony expression, and her breathing and demeanor was eerily calm – she was not stressed at all by the explosions. Her long wavy black hair was a little tossed about, and her brown skin was going slightly gray with exposure to ash and smoke.

“Captain,” the KVW engineer saluted, and then tonelessly continued, “At the order of Inspector Kimani I triggered all of the explosives that had been hidden under the field as Last Resort measures, via cable charges – I apologize that it was not done more promptly, but I found it difficult to dig up the old fuses, and Gowon’s staff was of little help in finding them. We also demolished the headquarters to prevent it falling to the enemy.”

That explained the explosions; the engineer had detonated the entire field under Nocht’s feet. It was not Madiha’s work. She had been saved at the last minute here.

“Good work, Sergeant Agni,” Madiha said, trying to keep a strong front despite her bewilderment with the events transpiring, “I take it then that the 3rd Motorized Division has arrived to cover the evacuation then. Are we ready to depart now?”

“Yes, we are all here, but I’m afraid we had to commandeer vehicles from nearby towns to have enough to start evacuating the base.” Sgt. Agni said, “Battlegroup Ox is woefully lacking in motorization, unlike the KVW. But nonetheless we are ready.”

Madiha’s head had cleared entirely, and her nose had ceased to bleed.

Through a mild headache she took stock.

Behind them, the field and most of the hill had become an inferno, the sky darkening with the smoke, the corpses of fallen soldiers burning within raging, open flames. Madiha thought that the traps along the border must have been more elaborate than she could have ever imagined – and yet they had failed. This area was no longer defensible. Adjar had been breached, and Nocht was rolling in to attack them over the open terrain. Certain structures in their government had predicted and had feared this with every fiber of their being for the past few weeks. Nothing concrete had been done to allay that fear. None of their cries were listened to. Now a border of flames stalled Nocht, but only temporarily. There were probably breaches elsewhere in the dominance. They had to leave quickly.

“Parinita, I suspect I will need you close in the coming days.” Madiha said.

“Yes, I had been meaning to say something about that as well.” Parinita said. She tied up her strawberry-colored hair into a ponytail while she spoke with renewed determination, and not a hint of her stuttering. “I had no love and little respect for Major Gowon, Captain. Few people in Ox had any – so, while it might be damning you with faint praise, I feel a lot better led by you, Captain. We survived all of this thanks to you.”

She bowed her head, and tried to smile a bit. She raised her left arm in a stiff salute.

“I feel as though the full reality of what has happened has not sunk in for me, Captain. If I weep, later on, or if I shake, I hope you will understand. But please allow me to serve you even if I serve with tears in my eyes. Thank you, and spirits defend you.”

Parinita held her salute. There were indeed tears in her eyes.

Madiha felt like asking the same of her – but instead she simply nodded and smiled.

Sergeant Agni led them from the front lines, with Madiha shouting for any stragglers to put grenades into the barrels of their anti-tank guns, to deny them to the enemy, and then to leave their positions behind and follow her. There were few people to call on – of all her emplacements across the defensive line, barely six or seven still stood.

She had lost almost all of the impromptu defense that Lt. Purana and Bogana had managed to build, and had it not been for the cable charges hidden in the field, they would have all been lost in the end. Shambling away from their positions as though dazed by strong drink, the soldiers destroyed their guns and headed up the road.

At the top of the slope, near the burning HQ, there were many trucks full of troops leaving the base, and towing the leftover guns behind them. A large, green, armored truck with four antennae and a machine gun turret stood prominently in the midst of the evacuation, and Madiha and Parinita made their way to it.

Inspector Kimani sat in the back, and saluted them as they approached.

“Good work, Madiha. For what you had on-hand, you did admirably.” Kimani said.

“Thank you, ma’am. May I make a call on the radio? We need to make preparations.”

“Ox is yours to command.” Kimani said. “And I will follow your orders as well.”

Madiha was confused. This was a sudden change in the plans.

“I’m only a Captain in the KVW, ma’am. I cannot command you. You are in charge of the 3rd KVW Motor Rifles – and I will defer to your command again once we evacuate. I am simply a member of your planning staff, who wishes to carry out a plan.”

“It would be disastrous, if I remain in command.” Kimani said. She was as stony and toneless now as Sergeant Agni – it was a common trait in KVW soldiers. Madiha was only a civilian liaison, and had been deemed incompatible with the crisis training that helped the KVW maintain their almost unnatural calm. This only made her all the more wary of her current position. Kimani stood off the back of the truck, and put both of her hands on Madiha’s shoulders, staring into her eyes. Madiha could see the thin, red lines circling around the inspector’s irises – the mark that she had received the full KVW training regime.

Kimani started to speak again, her fingers tracing Madiha’s broad shoulders. “Madiha, I told you before that there was a specific reason I wanted you with me, here, now. It was not so you could go to Bada Aso to try to repent, nor to write notes on a clipboard. I knew this fight was coming, and I told you as much. In truth, as a KVW inspector I am unfit to lead it. I do not balk at casualties, I do not preserve my own life – I do not feel pain and hardly feel exhaustion. I can feel your heart rushing even as I touch you now. That is why you have to lead them. Not just Ox, but the 3rd KVW Motor Rifles. It must be you.”

Madiha was overwhelmed. Things she would have rather not remembered resurfaced in her mind as she stared into the unfeeling eyes of Inspector Kimani. Madiha had never led full-scale battles, even as a military advisor. She had sat behind the lines, offering training, talking about gun ranges and precision shooting, formulating strategies, supporting operational planning. During the revolution she had been a courier between rebel groups; she had never even picked up a rifle after that. During the Akjer incident she was a spy-hunter, finding radios hidden in walls and breaking ciphers passed along in seedy bars, and then sending unarmed infiltrators to their deaths by firing squad.

She was a thinker, a planner, a good socialist, she thought.

And she was repentant and haunted by so many awful things.

“I am not a commander, Chinedu.” Madiha pleaded, using Kimani’s given name.

Kimani shook her head. “You could have fooled me. You have a plan, don’t you?”

In an instant, without thinking over it much, Madiha felt a burning in her head and her heart that compelled her. As if from another mind a dozen thoughts rushed to her. She began to explain without stopping and without thinking it over, “The situation: Dori Dobo is doomed to us, as is the border; it is impossible to organize a defense there. We must evacuate everything possible from the city. Move all food and equipment to Bada Aso. We will make our stand at Bada Aso, abandoning Dori Dobo to slow down Nocht.”

She realized what she had said, but she was helpless to take it back.

Kimani squeezed Madiha’s shoulders, an uncommonly gentle gesture from her superior officer. “I thought your peculiar strengths would be gone after what you suffered in the Revolution. But that was not the war you were born for after all.”

That terrible headache burned at all of her mind.

Madiha felt like her brains would split in two.

“You will reconcile all your confusion, eventually.” Kimani said gently. “If I understood what was in store for you in detail, Madiha, I would explain it. I want to help you. But I don’t know. For now, all I can tell you is that you are needed here. Make your call on the radio, Captain. For all of our sakes, you must carry out your plan.”

Madiha was unable to speak back to her or understand fully what she meant.

She felt that if she spoke, some other person would talk in her stead. Was she losing her mind? She felt Parinita hold her hand in support, and she felt Kimani let her go, and she stepped aside, ushering Madiha into the command truck.

Still struck dumb, Madiha opened the radio channel and called Dori Dobo’s command, mechanically repeating her orders to the confusion of everyone there. Kimani and Parinita butted in and supported her – she hoped that would be enough to get things going.

She switched to Ox’s communications and radioed all forces to fall back to Bada Aso.

Finally, she braced herself for the most frightening of her planned calls.

“Battlegroup Lion, this is Captain Nakar of the 3rd KVW Motor Rifles Division. Ox has come under attack by Nocht forces. What is your status? I repeat, what is your status, Lion? Has the Shaila dominance fallen under attack? Is the Nocht Federation attacking in Shaila?” There was silence on the line. Then there was screaming.

“Oh thank the ancestors!” A voice, cracking and shifting and almost too rough to understand. “We need your support, Captain. At this rate we’ll be encircled! We need everything you can spare, or we will lose Shaila’s borders for sure!”

Madiha trembled at the desperation inherent in the voice.

“We have nothing to spare. How long can Lion hold out?”

There was no response.

Madiha turned off the radio. She buried her face in her hands.

“It appears that I have been given command.” She said, her heart rushing. “We move to Bada Aso, and make our stand there. It is the only defensible area left.”

Parinita and Kimani nodded solemnly.

The evacuation proceeded quickly, and they were out on the Ayvartan roads long before the flames along the field had gone out. Flames that might soon engulf all of Adjar dominance, all of the adjoining Shaila dominance that Battlegroup Lion was struggling to protect, and perhaps all of Ayvarta. Lines of trucks rushed out of the border area, filled with soldiers like Adesh, Nnennia and Eshe, towing behind them the few guns they had left, watching the skies and the burning trail they had left behind.

The Solstice War had begun.

---

NEXT CHAPTER in Generalplan Suden — A Change of Scenery