By 1955, the Empire's foundations were beginning to crack. The guerrilla war in Fhirald was tying down multiple divisions of troops, and the slow-but-steady leakage of dissidents, scientists, Darcsens, and others who ran afoul of officialdom to Gallia and the Federation was placing it at an increasing disadvantage in the arms race that had begun shortly after the Second Europan War. The best-case scenario put forth by the General Staff in its 1953 review was that by 1965, the Empire would have no chance of winning a major conflict if current trends continued…The Empire decided to try something new—instead of attacking the Federation first, it would attack Gallia…

Excerpted with permission from Third Time's the Charm: The Last Europan War, Frederic Potter; Koller Press; 1962

As Major Heinrich Lannes got out of the car, he looked to the north, and wondered what the morrow would bring.

The signs had been there since this time last year, for those who had the relevant information and the wisdom to put the pieces together. Imperial factories had ramped up ammunition production, military exercises had been going ahead under conditions that would normally have seen them canceled, and their propaganda outlets had been steadily escalating their rhetoric to a fever pitch. Recently, however, the indicators of an imminent attack had grown stronger. Imperial forces in Fhirald had not received any replacements for the past two months. Trains were moving west loaded with soldiers, tanks, and supplies, and returning east with little but raw materials. And, as in the last war, Imperial exports had plunged while their imports had increased.

Six hours ago, he'd received the final indication that the attack was coming within the next two days, and, after having notified Vredefort—presently the overseer of all Gallia's secrets—and Her Highness, who had responded by saying that she was about to call Parliament into an emergency session to announce full mobilization, had driven here.

He looked at the house for a moment and sighed. It reminded him of his place, really—set off a little, not really away from everybody, but far enough away that you could pretend you were out in the country. It was a perfect place for a man who loved nature and people to raise a family in peace.

And he had disturbed that peace tonight just by coming here, which he could tell from the fact that the door was opening without him even coming up to knock.

"Who's there—oh, it's you, Heinrich," Alicia Gunther said, with a note of wariness. "What brings you here?"

"I need to speak to you and Welkin," Lannes replied. "It's…somewhat urgent."

The former sergeant's face set into a determined expression. "Come in, then. I'll get Welkin. Welkin!" she called as she stepped back into the house. "Heinrich's here!"

As Lannes stepped onto the porch and through the doorway, he took a moment to look around the place. This was a home, not a just a house, and it was obvious that its residents cared for it and for each other.

Despite himself, he felt a small smile quirk when he saw the photograph of the Gunthers at the 3rd Militia's fifteenth reunion. Isara had been thirteen at the time, and their son, Faldio, had been ten. He'd managed to make it there with Julia and all four of their children—they'd decided to stop after Jeanne, who hadn't quite turned three at the time—and had had the opportunity to catch up with the others, most of whom had been married with children—and by now, most of those children were old enough to fight.

Isara Gunther included.

As he stepped into their kitchen, he saw that he'd arrived just late enough not to interrupt supper. Their children were cleaning up, and Gunther was standing to greet him. Something of the expression on his face must have shown what he was there for, because he turned to them and said "Isara, Faldio. Go upstairs, please. Now."

This caused the two to turn towards him, as he stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. "Hello, Major Lannes," Isara said as she wiped her hands on a towel. "Don't worry, I heard the announcement on the radio. I'll be at my mobilization point on time," she added as she headed for the stairs.

"Good," Lannes replied, as he breathed a sigh of relief. At least they wouldn't be caught completely flatfooted, like during the last war.

Faldio also greeted him, and followed in his sister's footsteps, leaving Lannes and the Gunthers in the kitchen.

"Why don't you sit, Heinrich?" Gunther asked as his wife sat beside him.

"I believe I will," Lannes replied as he went to the table and pulled out a chair, "though I doubt you'll want to hear what I have to say."

"So it's really war, then?"

"Yes. The Imps are going to start by invading us this time, instead of the Federation. They think either the Feds won't come and help us, and they'll be able to take our ragnite, or the Feds will come and help us, in which case they'll be able to successfully attack them down south."

Welkin Gunther grimaced. "I suppose we should get ready for our call-up, then."

"That's actually what I wanted to talk to the two of you about," Lannes said quietly. "We might be able to avoid that."

The Gunthers weren't stupid.

"My wife," Welkin Gunther said steadily, "doesn't have access to her Valkyria powers anymore."

"I know. And reactivating them at her age could kill her. I'm not here about your wife." He paused, admittedly for dramatic effect. "I'm here about your daughter."

"What would you want with Isara!?" Alicia Gunther asked angrily. "She's already in the militia!"

"Don't pretend you don't know," Lannes snapped. "She's an unactivated Valkyria, and you know it."

The two of them looked at him, stunned. "How did you—"

"Doctor Riebeek. Don't blame him, he didn't know what he was doing."

"So is that what you came here for," Alicia Gunther spat, "To tell us that you were dragging our daughter off so you could shoot her and use her to win the war for you?"

"No, actually," Lannes half-snarled. "I came here to ask her if she would be willing to volunteer for the job. Who the Hel do you think I am? I'm a Gallian, not a monster."

"No way," Welkin Gunther said. "Victory gained by the Valkyria's powers—"

"Will still be victory. I'm not suggesting that we attempt to overrun the Empire using your daughter as our spearhead. What I'm suggesting is that we blow the Imp invasion force straight to Hel before they get the chance to kill tens of thousands of Gallia's sons and daughters again."

"No," Welkin Gunther replied. "Even if it did work, the Empire would surely have some of their own. This would only escalate the conflict."

"As I recall," Lannes said flatly, "The Empire used a Valkyria first during the last war. And we know they're planning on deploying them somewhere along the line, although right now we think they're sending them into the Wildwood and at Ghirlandaio. Which is another reason why I came to ask for your daughter to volunteer for the activation process."

"But she doesn't have a—wait—that's why you weren't there when Leon landed us back with the regiment. You were retrieving my lance and shield!" Alicia Gunther realized, and Lannes nodded.

Welkin Gunther shook his head. "No. We'll find another way. I'll not have…"

"Papa?"

Everyone turned towards the stairs, where Isara Gunther stood, dressed in her militia uniform, rifle slung behind her shoulder and binoculars around her neck.

"Isara, I thought I told you…"

"Papa, is what he's saying true? Am I a Valkyria?"

Lannes whirled around to gawp at the Gunthers. "You mean you didn't tell her!?"

But even as he said it, he knew why they hadn't. They'd wanted their daughter to live a normal life, free of the shadow of the Valkyria. And they'd never thought that war might come back again to Gallia.

Now that he'd had a moment to think about, he wasn't sure if he wouldn't have made the same decision.

"Never mind," he said with a sigh.

Gunther sighed as well before answering his daughter. "Yes, you are. We found out when you eight, and you got a cut on your arm one evening. When I went to check up on you after you want to sleep, you were glowing blue, and that's when I knew." He looked at her, eyes pleading.

"Isara, I didn't want you to find out like this, or at all."

"You don't have to explain, Papa," she said as she came down the stairs. "You just wanted me to have a childhood." She looked at Lannes. "What do I have to do?"

"Isara—"

"No, Mama. You made your choice, this is mine."

"Miss Gunther," Lannes began, "before I go any further, there are some things you should know. There are other Gallian Valkyria. If you should choose not to do this, and go to the war as a scout, it will not cripple us."

"But it would make things more difficult, wouldn't it? And more people would die than if I fought as a Valkyria?"

"As to the first question, yes. The other, I don't know. Fewer Gallians, almost certainly. The other thing is—"

"I'll have to be injured to the point of death." Apparently he must have shown some surprise, because she smiled sadly. "I read that book that Ike Rogers wrote about the Valkyria and their history. I don't want to do this, but that probably means that I should do it."

Lannes nodded deeply. "Thank you, Miss Gunther. That, however, brings me to the next part. The Imps are coming here tonight."

"What?"

"That's the second reason I came here. The Imps don't know that you," he nodded towards Alicia Gunther, "aren't a Valkyria anymore. And they also want you," he turned his head towards Welkin Gunther, "dead because they blame you for Maximilian's death."

"Wait, didn't—"

"Yes, but they wanted to do it themselves. One of us doing it made them look weak. Also, thanks to Irene Koller's book, they think you turned the tide of the war all by yourself." He shrugged. "So they're sending a kill team after you. They'll be here in an hour. Which is why we need to get out of here now."

"Why didn't you tell us this before asking Isara to let you shoot her so she can become a Valkyria?"

"Because I didn't want her to make the decision because she thought I'd saved her family's lives," Lannes snapped. "Besides, we've got plenty of time to get all of you somewhere safe."

Then Lannes' radio crackled.

"Sir," Friedrich Karsten, now possessing a last name and serving as part of Lannes' security element, said into his ear, "we have a problem."

"What is it?" Lannes asked.

"Imp kill team is five minutes from your position," he said flatly. "Kat picked up a transmission saying they just got into Bruhl."

"Are the troops in position?"

"Not quite. It'll be a tight race, and they might make it there before we do."

Well, that wasn't good.

All three of the Gunthers present were looking at him worriedly. "Whoever's leading the kill team seems to have jumped the gun. They're already just about here."

"So what do we do now?"

"I'm going to out to my car and get my MAG. You three get upstairs and stay down. Last thing we want is for any of you to actually get killed."

As Lannes went for the door, he heard the trio behind him immediately go into a furious but quiet argument, and suspected that he knew what it was. Isara Gunther intended to stay with him and watch his back, while her parents were almost certainly going to try and get her to come upstairs with them and her brother.

He really hoped they won the argument. If they could induce her Valkyria powers in a controlled environment, it would be much safer both for her and for everyone around her. If she went into a fugue state like her mother had at the Naggiar—well, the Imp invasion would be the least of Lannes' problems.

As he opened the passenger side door, he listened carefully for the sound of an approaching vehicle. The kill team supposedly had only five members, but that would still mean he would be badly outnumbered until Karsten and the others got here, even if Isara Gunther joined him. In fact, he hoped she wouldn't—he'd never fought with her, and she was grass-green, which combined meant that she might be a liability rather than an asset.

And while they had the lance and shield close at hand, in case of an accident along the way, no one was really sure what would happen if her Valkyria powers activated outside of a controlled environment. Would the fact that she knew allow her to control herself, or would she end up like her mother, destroying everything in her path?

No one knew the answers to those questions, because no one had been willing to risk either a potential Valkyria's life or their own. He didn't want to find out tonight.

As he racked the slide back on the MAG, he heard the screeching noise of a vehicle taking a corner far too quickly, and slammed the door shut and sprinted for the house, thankful that he'd had to maintain fitness standards.

He shut the door and killed the lights the moment he stepped through, and cursed when he saw Isara Gunther standing in the hallway, rifle in hand. At least it's one of the newer ones, he thought. The new rifles packed more of a punch, were more accurate, and held more rounds than what had been available during the last war.

Which was also true of his MAG, fortunately, but the basic roles were still the same.

"Where're your parents?" he growled.

"Upstairs," she said quietly. "They're breaking out their rifles right now. Don't worry, they won't do anything…foolish. And they won't let Faldio do anything stupid either."

In Lannes' opinion, that the older Gunthers and Isara were joining in at all was somewhat foolish, and the capacity of thirteen year old boys to do foolhardy things was limitless, but he refrained from saying so. Instead, he said, "Do exactly as I tell you, and you don't move forward for anything. If you die, I've failed. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir!" she said crisply, but he could hear the fear behind it. He didn't blame her—there was a lot more at stake for her tonight than there had been for him the first time he'd faced the fire.

"Good. I'm going to be covering the door from here," he said, pointing to their parlor. "I want you covering the window that I won't be able to watch. If you see an Imp about to fire, kill him. Got it?"

"Yes sir," she said, and started moving into position as he did—carefully, since the house was dark, but when he heard the sound of a car screeching to a halt he dove for the floor and rolled to where he could see the doorway—which opened to the other side, so he wouldn't have a blocked shot. Hopefully—

The Imps didn't open fire the moment they stepped out of the car, which he'd expected but hadn't quite been counting on. Now, if they kept following procedure, one would stay in the driver's seat, one would get out of the car and stay by it to cover them, and three would head for the door, and probably go for a quick-and-dirty entry instead of a subtle one.

The door lock flew into the wall a half second before the door slammed back on its hinges and the Imp who'd blasted it out stepped into the house, scanning to his right as he did so.

Unfortunately, he'd been expecting to deal with a scared, startled, and unarmed family, not people who were prepared for his arrival, and he wasn't quite fast enough.

RATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATAT!

He fell back against the door bonelessly. Lannes never had figured out why the Imps refused to use ragnite stabilizers.

Now where—

CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK!

The sound of Isara Gunther's bullets sailing over his head joined that of shattering glass, and he glanced over in time to see the Imp who'd been about to blast him through the window crumple out of sight. He then whipped his head back around just in time to see the third man leap over the porch railing and head back for the car, just as rifle shots rang out from the roof.

Valkyrur damn it.

The Imps were firing back now, mostly at the second story, and if Isara Gunther was anything like her parents—

"Stay back, girl!" Lannes ordered, but her parents had raised her all too well, she was already sprinting down the hallway, and she was able to dodge the arm he swung out to try and grab her as he attempted to stand up.

He was able to come up just behind her, though, and one of the good things about the newer MAGs was that they fired in two bursts, not one, so at least he should able to provide her with covering fire.

She slid to the side and crashed into the porch railing as he came through the doorway, but his main focus was on the Imps as he brought his MAG to firing position. The man who'd been on the porch was still struggling to his feet, the man who'd been on watch had ducked behind the passenger side door, and where was whoever'd been driving?

The man behind the passenger side door began to stand.

RATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATAT!

His target crumpled, and he turned to see the two Imps on the other side coming to their feet simultaneously. The one who'd been on the porch held a ZMMR. The woman who'd been driving held an incendiary grenade, and was obviously about to throw it into the upstairs window that the rifle fire had come from.

He tried to jump forward, to get between the first Imp and Isara Gunther, but he was slow, so slow…

CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK!

RATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATAT!

The driver fell, the grenade dropping at her feet, at the same time that Isara Gunther crumpled over her rifle and he stepped into the Imps' line of fire just long enough to catch the tail end of the burst, which hurt like anything, but he was still up for—

The grenade went up with a whoosh!

He was only close enough to catch the heat front, which hurt but wasn't crippling. The Imp, on the other hand, had caught enough to where he was actually on fire, along with the car.

Which probably had fuel in it.

He turned and painfully stumbled to the girl lying on the porch. She was still breathing, as he'd expected, but it was pretty obvious that she was flagging.

"My team's on their way," he said, as he knelt down beside her. "They've got the lance and shield with them, just in case something like this happened."

She looked up and smiled wanly. "Good. Is my family—?"

"I'm sure they're all right," Lannes said hurriedly, hoping that was true. "Why'd you do it?"

Her breathing was starting to become labored. "Thought of it the moment you said someone was coming…didn't want you or someone else…to pull the trigger on me…especially if it didn't work…you shouldn't have to…deal with that…"

Valkyrur damn it. The girl made her namesake look selfish.

He heard Welkin Gunther yell "Isara!" at the same time as he heard the sounds of his teams vehicles braking hard to come to a full stop from near full throttle, and he turned and yelled, "Friedrich! Get the back ready now! And someone get that fire out!"

He heard someone yell for the extinguisher as he turned back to the girl. "Just hold on another minute. They have to get things ready." Please hold on. For all our sakes. We need people like you.


Major Heinrich Lannes stood in the main observation bunker for the Ghirlandaio Line. Excavated on the rim of the crater created by the blast that had destroyed the original citadel, it had been built from one side of the valley to the other, with the hills incorporated into the design. There was also only one route across the crater, which had had its sides steepened over the years to make using it as a way across as difficult as possible—a causeway that held two rail lines and a highway, was maybe a hundred yards wide, and was within range of nearly every heavy gun on the line.

What was coming towards them, however, was enough to make him think that wouldn't be enough.

There were six Batomys-class siege engines crawling towards them, and they'd improved the original design significantly—for one thing, there weren't any convenient radiators to drop a grenade down.

Then there was what was coming up behind them—four battalions of assault troops, supported by Dromedarius super-heavy tanks, and an entire Imp division of regular infantry and armor. And behind all of that, there stood a female figure, wreathed in blue flame.

He wasn't surprised that the Imps hadn't bothered to start an artillery bombardment.

And then there was what was up in the sky—a dozen airships, all more powerful than the one Gassenarl had used during the civil war. The Stork fighters that Schmidt and Czherny had designed and built were designed almost exclusively to bring them down, but there weren't that many of them—there just weren't enough qualified pilots in the country. The anti-airship guns would do their best, but the undersides of the things were armored well enough to repel shrapnel and shells having to overcome the pull of gravity.

All of this, Lannes mused, to take on an infantry brigade, albeit a very well-protected one.

And while this force was the largest one, the one attacking the Kloden Gash, as the Marmota's trail had become called, was nearly as strong, and other, smaller forces were attacking all along the border.

The Imp strategy wasn't subtle, but it did have a certain crude elegance to it—use your sheer numbers to force the enemy to either give up large swathes of his land, or to let you break through his most vital points, which would still fall anyway once they were eventually outflanked. While the Federation would respond, as long as the Imps didn't overstretch themselves like Maximilian had, they would be able to secure and hold more than enough ragnite to provide for everything their war machine could possibly want.

Well, if everything went according to plan.

Which it wouldn't.

Lannes' work had always been twofold—to convince the Feds and the Imps that there were enough Gallian Valkyrur to make attacking dangerous, but to not reveal their true number. As near as anyone in the Intelligence Service could tell, the Imps thought there were two active Valkyria, one of which they thought they had disposed of, and two potentials.

They had been correct about how many active Valkyria there were, though they did not know that their kill team had failed—or that their target hadn't been one of the two actives.

However, there were nearly a dozen potentials in Gallia, not two, and while not all had volunteered—and Lannes, in charge of the project, had respected their wishes—most had.

Of those who had volunteered, all had survived the procedure to activate their powers—multiple gunshot wounds, all in places that would not kill instantly, but would kill if left untreated—and none of them had slipped into the fugue state that had overtaken Alicia Gunther when her powers had been activated.

They hadn't been able to acquire enough of the old lances and shields to arm all of the newly-activated Valkyrur with them, unfortunately—they'd had to pass them around to each woman, one after another, as they recovered. Fortunately, it turned out that natural Valkyrur could use weapons made for artificial ones. Said weapons were heavier and bulkier than the original ones, but they were good enough.

He hoped they were, anyway. Both of his sons were out there—Finn was in the Wildwood, and Louis was on the edge of the Barious Desert—and if his daughters had been of age he had little doubt that they would have been on the front line as well. And there were tens of thousands more like them, sitting in their trenches and clutching their guns as they waited for the storm to break over them and prayed that they could both survive it and beat it back.

He took out his old binoculars and looked out at the causeway. Where—there!

A figure who he assumed was Isara Gunther walked into view, blue flames serving as a beacon for everyone who could see her.

The Imperial forces stopped. They knew what was in front of them.

Then she did something he hadn't expected.

"SOLDIERS OF THE EMPIRE!" she called, and Lannes was extremely glad that he was nowhere near her—if he could hear her from back here, anyone close to her would be half-deaf by the time she was done. "TURN BACK! PLEASE! I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU!"

He could hear her anguish, but knew it would do no good. Not today.

One of the lead siege engines fired.

She sidestepped it gracefully.

"VERY WELL," she said coldly. "YOU HAD YOUR SECOND CHANCE."

And with that, she fired, and blue light stabbed out from her lance and into the Batomys that had fired at her, and he hissed when he realized where she was aiming just in time for the thing to explode so violently that the top armor flew up into the air intact while the war machine next to it actually rocked from the blast wave.

The Imps knew how to deal with that problem—throw enough firepower at any one target, and it would eventually succumb. The enemy Valkyria began to run forward, fast as lightning, as the other war machines turned towards the new target.

Unfortunately for them, as the airships began to move to attack, two more beams of light stabbed out from the ground, and they began to plummet to the ground as Gallia's Valkyrur began to move forward, bringing down the mightiest machines the Empire could devise as the Gallian artillery began to land among the infantry. He could hear the other officers starting to overcome their initial shock and realize what was happening. He wasn't worried about them doing something stupid like ordering an attack—the Princess's orders had been extremely clear on that point. That, and no one wanted to face a Valkyria on the open field.

He held his breath as the Imperial got close enough to actually target Gunther. It would be tolerable if the two settled into a stalemate. But if Gunther lost…

He needn't have worried. She sidestepped the Imp's initial attack neatly, and she and the other two Gallian Valkyrur targeted her.

The poor woman lasted less than two seconds before her shield…overloaded?

Whatever it was, she was nearly vaporized in the resultant explosion, and as the dust settled he could see the Imps beginning to run as Gallia's Valkyrur methodically took the survivors apart.

Now, he might have been worried that they might try and order the Valkyrur around during the pursuit, because as far as he was concerned they were like snipers—give them general orders, and then turn them loose—while the regulars wanted direct control over such powerful soldiers.

That didn't matter, though, because the regulars couldn't give them orders, because the chain of command ran from the Valkyria through him, and then to the Princess.

Speaking of which…

"Have you sent the report yet?" he asked Johanna Ivor softly.

"Yes sir," she replied. "The Princess should be receiving it now," she added as the last Batomys exploded, the remaining airships desperately tried to claw their way up and back towards the Imperial border, and the Valkyrur started in on the super-heavies.

He wondered what she would say when she spoke this evening. But right now, the Ghirlandaio Line was safe. And, as reports began to come in from the other fronts, it became clear that similar scenes had played out at Kloden, and everywhere else where Gallian Valkyrur had been deployed. Imperial forces were in full retreat all along the Gallian border, and the Federation was already moving forward—apparently they'd been more fully mobilized than anyone had thought.

Even as the war raged to the south, as dusk fell on the opening battleground of the final Europan war, the only sounds were those of the search parties looking for survivors of the Imperial assault force.

Gallia was safe.

Major Heinrich Lannes' work was done.


People of Gallia. This morning, we were attacked by the forces of the Eastern Europan Empire, who sought to use us and our land as pawns in their bid to control all of Europa. This attack has already failed, and there is not a single Imperial soldier who still fights on Gallian soil.

I know that many of you have already heard the rumors that Valkyrur fought for us on the battlefield.

These are true.

But these were not legends of the past. These were brave women who willingly risked death in order to become what Gallia needed to survive. Your sisters. Your wives. Your daughters. Your sweethearts. Honor them as best you can.

I understand that this revelation will cause some to ask if Gallia will seek to use this power to expand its borders. But none of these women desire to do so, and if I asked them they would refuse me. And I would not ask them, because I do not want to.

Gallia will not bring war to anyone. But we will not permit you to bring war to Gallia.

We will have peace, and none shall take it from us.

Speech given by Princess Cordelia gi Randgriz, last monarch of the Grand Duchy of Gallia, April 19, 1955

A/N: Well, that's the end of this story. My thanks to those of you who've been reading along since the beginning, especially to those who've left reviews, and to anyone else who happens to do so in the future. I hope you've enjoyed reading this, and if you have any questions, feel free to PM me or leave a review. See y'all next time.