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Vallulart Camp, Ytres, France, Europe, Earth, Sol System, Local Cluster, Milky Way.
21st March, 1918 CE.

Lieutenant Colonel Richard Crosse sat in his office, with Major Bertram Thwaite, Captain Raymond Seymour and Lieutenant Trafford Steel in attendance, discussing the recent interrogation of their mysterious 'guest'.

Major Thwaite spoke first, "So, what do you make of, erm, well, her, so to speak, sir?"

At the question, Crosse took a moment, to collect his thoughts, before he asked in response, "Well, what do you three, make of her, gentlemen?"

Exchanging looks between each other, Major Thwaite replied to the Lieutenant Colonel's question.
"Erm, well, definitely not a German, sir".

Laughter followed, for a bit before they all collected themselves and got straight down to business, and before Captain Seymour could speak, Lieutenant Steel cut in by saying, "I've got to say, sirs, that you all don't seem rather surprised, that we have, basically, an alien amongst our presence, right in this very camp. I mean, an alien! An alien from outer space! I'm quite surprised that you're not at all surprised".
"Oh we were all very surprised, Leftenant, when we brought her into the camp. It did take us a while to get used to, but she was quite out of it for a while, so that did allow us to get our bearings and get used to the fact that we had an alien being in our presence".

Lieutenant Colonel Crosse continued listening as his men debated about aliens, but he felt that enough was enough and they needed to get down straight to more important matters at hand, so he raised his voice, "Gentlemen, please! If you're done debating, we've got much more important matters at hand that we need to talk about. Like the latest activity that has been going on behind the German lines".

Thwaite nodded his head, "Yes sir, quite most troubling, combined with the recent intelligence reports on German activity around St. Quentin, and the reports of unusual activity in the enemy lines, through morning and night, I'd say that an enemy offensive is absolutely imminent, it's just a matter of when that concerns me".

Captain Seymour shook his head and did not hide his skepticism from his voice as he spoke his mind, "With due respect sir, we've been getting reports of a German offensive, and yet, I've yet to see any concrete proof of it. And I do not count the word of a Bosch as being proof. And in any case, we'll stop any offensive in our tracks", only for Thwaite to snap back, "How, may I ask, Captain? Do you know that all our Battle Zone redoubts are so far apart, that they cannot mutually support one another? Seriously, it'd be so easy for a small group of soldiers to just slip right past them, and all it'll take is for the enemy infantry to just simply bypass all the redoubts, and then, they will all be surrounded. To say that Fifth Army's defences are incomplete, is a massive under-estimatement".

But soon, Crosse held up a hand for silence, as he felt that the talk would have lead to an argument, and immediately, all the men fell silent, as he then said, "You all have very valid concerns, gentlemen, and I've seen the intelligence reports. I do agree with you, some form of German offensive action is about to be conducted, but I don't think it'll be anytime soon. They still will need to build up their forces, even with all the troops coming over from Russia, now that Russia's basically thrown the towel", before seeing his men's faces and then continuing on, "but to allay your fears, I've learned that the 61st Division launched a raid last night on German positions, capturing German prisoners, who've apparently said that this offensive would take place this morning. I don't know if it's true or not, but apparently, a artillery and gas bombardment is apparently being launched at German lines and assembly areas ahead of the 61st, as I speak".

Silence fell amongst the group, as looks were exchanged, until Lieutenant Steel asked, "So, what's going to be done about our guest, sir?"

Even though slightly a bit irritated that they were back on that subject again, the Lieutenant Colonel did provide an answer to that question,
"Well gentlemen, as you are aware, when our mysterious 'guest' arrived, I sent a telegram to Division HQ, regarding our 'guest', and I've recently just gotten an answer".

Immediately, they all paid attention, just in time when Crosse said, "We're to hold her in our custody until the Royal Military Police arrives to take her away tomorrow afternoon".

Some uneasy glances, as Captain Seymour asked, "Take her away to where, Colonel?"
"They didn't say".

Crosse sighed, but said eventually, after a long pause,
"It doesn't matter. The Redcaps will be here in the afternoon, and take our 'guest' out of our hands. Then we can get back to business as usual, to the war at hand".


British trenches near Havrincourt, France, Europe, Earth, Sol System, Local Cluster, Milky Way.
21st March, 1918 CE.

In the British trenches, the men were conducting their duties, or getting as much sleep as they could, all the whilst unaware that, across the German lines, all sorts of field, medium and heavy guns, and mortars, including the 21 cm Morser 16s, 15 cm sFH 13s, 10 cm K 17s, 10.5 cm leFH 16s, 25 cm schwerer Minenwerfers and 7.58 cm Minenwerfers, were being prepped by their crews, while German infantry readied themselves to go 'over the top'.

Then at 0435 hours, they could hear explosions off in the distance, south-west of St. Quentin.
This continued on for around 5 minutes, until 0440 hours, when the British trenches all across 40 miles were suddenly attacked by a large scale bombardment, as were the rear areas and the artillery behind the lines.

Men in the trenches were forced to take cover, any way they could, as trench mortars, mustard gas, tear gas and chlorine gas struck their trenches.

Some men managed to put on their gas masks as their NCOs or officers, started ringing the nearby bells rapidly to indicate a gas attack, but for some, it was too late, as they started gasping and clutching their faces and eyes in terror and pain.
And whenever mustard gas was concerned, even a gas mask was not enough to prevent it's effects, as contact amongst skin resulted in blistering.

Meanwhile, in the rear areas, headquarters, telephone exchanges, railways and artillery positions were being struck by an intensive barrage from German artillery, that was absolutely relentless and unending.

And then, in the German trenches, the German infantry, awaited the signal to go over the top.


Vallulart Camp, Ytres, France, Europe, Earth, Sol System, Local Cluster, Milky Way.
21st March, 1918 CE.

In the shed nearby, Trileena was sitting on the chair, trying to get some rest after the interrogation from the native military officers, that had taken quite a while, given that light had fallen, and was now rising (even though the sun was not up in the sky, Trileena knew it soon would be eventually).
Even though the chair was quite a bit uncomfortable for her to sleep in, and adding to that, her hands were handcuffed again (after the interrogation, with a warning not to break free from them again from the officers), something told her, after the interrogation had concluded, that she would be needing all the rest she would get, if she was to have a chance of getting off this planet.

But her attempts to get some rest, were futile, when suddenly, a series of loud noises were heard in the distance, making her fully awake, as she bolted upright, out of her chair and headed towards the door, to listen to those sounds.

It was a noise, that was familiar to Trileena. Artillery fire.

And there was a lot of it, that was for certain.

Now, it was starting to look like she was going to be on this planet for a while longer.


And thus, begins Operation Michael. And Trileena is right in the middle of it.

Mustard gas was a horrific chemical agent. Even after it was deployed, it was still dangerous, as it could linger around for days, and weeks, thus it was an effective area-denial weapon. Also, gas masks were not enough to prevent it's effects, as it caused blistering upon contact with the skin.
And it's lingering effects could also mean that other soldiers who come into contact with a contaminated soldier, are also poisoned by it's effects.

An answer to Guest's question posted on August 7th, Well it is true that Uranus and Neptune have hydrogen and helium in it's atmosphere like Jupiter and Saturn, both planets actually contain "ices", a term for volatiles with freezing points above 100 K, namely ices and rock. And thus, Sol does have ice giants.

Anyways, don't forget to leave a review whenever you can, and see you next time!