Return on Investment

by BlueRibbon118

Although the Lighthouse War is over, Princess Rosa Cossette D'Elise's problems are only just beginning. Together with her companions, she must forge a new path in a shattered Usea, gripped by strife and disorder. But they are not alone. Sensing opportunity, new powers have emerged from the shadows - each with their own plans for the ailing continent...

5. Side Story: Poison Pill

Return on Investment

---

Side Story - Poison Pill

"A nation is comprised of the individuals who live in its borders. It can only become a nation when it is supported by those individuals."
— Lieutenant-Colonel Detlef Fleisher, Belkan Air Force

---

Shilage Castle Town, Western Usea
30 May 2020

Jakob Vizsla glanced up and frowned. Daylight was fading.

The sky above the town was hazed over by powdered masonry and sickly dust, and buzzing with the awful noises of industry and heavy equipment. It stank of nitrates and ionization, like broken metal - nothing at all like the pastoral sights and sounds that he had grown up with; of wild flowers and horses, of church bells and small birds frolicking at the water's edge in the ancient shadow of Shilage Castle.

Dressed in simple civilian flannel, Vizsla walked down the streets of what was once the busiest market in town. As a child, born some years before the Ulysses cataclysm, Vizsla still held fond memories of accompanying his parents on their weekly shopping trips, wandering the ancient cobblestone streets and little stone buildings, perusing the wares of vendors near and far, of freshly-picked produce, bags of rich-smelling grain, herbs and spices from distant lands, and lacquered, hand-crafted pottery.

Now, all of those were gone. There were no markets around these days. Between those lost to Erusean press gangs and Osean bombings, the few vendors that remained had recently found themselves swiftly muscled out of business by glittering shopping malls, bought and paid for by the General Resource corporation. The cobbled streets that had once weaved them together were now jagged canyons of dirt and bedrock, littered with heavy equipment left by their construction crews at the end of the working day, quite literally paving the way for bland asphalt and soulless glass frontages that had been fenced off from the people by wiremesh barricades.

Vizsla walked past a brightly-lit electronic billboard, which was playing back a looping advert reel at maximum volume;

«Writing's not that easy, but General Resource can help! GR Ammarly makes writing simple, even for dyslexic dumb-dumbs who can't write - just like you! Visit GR-Ammarly-dot-com and download the app today!»

«Get rich quick with GR Eed! Your one-stop-shop for all your investment and banking needs! Just give us your hard-earned savings, and we'll do the investing for you! Don't worry, you can trust us with your money... Would we lie to you, friend?»

«Introducing GR Awndo, the thirst mutilator! It's got electrolytes - it's what plants crave!»

«General Resource... We're there for you in everyday life... Ushering in a new era with you... Building a better future with you... We're out there every day, and with you today...»

«And remember... Don't be evil!»

Ignoring the screen, Vizsla walked on. He passed by a knot of armed guards bearing the stylized "G" of the General Resource Defense Force, and some of them looked up to leer at him. There was no point trying to avoid them; their patrol routes spanned the entire town, through bars, squares, halls, churches, and even washrooms. Ostensibly, their purpose was to ensure civil order and public safety - which, in the experience of most Shilagians, was code for martial law and social repression.

The guards themselves were lightly equipped, wearing little more than unarmored tunics and carrying MP7 submachine guns. But their presence was overshadowed by a nearby Sentinel walker; an angular, open-topped scout vehicle standing about five meters tall on a pair of mechanical ostrich legs, carrying a swivel-mounted searchlight that chased away even the darkest shadows. It was no battle tank, but its height - along with a chin-mounted 20mm autocannon - nonetheless made a formidable psychological impression, an unsubtle statement of who was really in charge of these streets.

As he walked past another group of security guards, one of them catcalled at him,

'Hey! Hey you! Wanna see something cool? Pull down my pants and you'll see! Uehehehehe~!'

The others around him joined in. They were openly pointing and laughing.

'I had an explicit dream about you last night involving a powerful discharge!'

'Go and boil your bottoms, you son of a silly person! I blow my nose at you, so-called Shilagians! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries!'

'Onii-chan, your sugoi dekai chin-chin really makes me feel doki-doki kimochii inside my kokoro, uguu~!'

Vizsla kept walking. He knew they were goading for an excuse to hurt him with something more than mere words. Many others had succumbed and suffered for it, but not him. He was too well-trained for that. The important thing was not to react.

Leaving the baying hyenas behind, he was crossing a bridge over the Zala River - the cradle and lifeblood of the nation - when he heard the rotor blades. The H-9 Helicopter, carbon-black and bearing GRDF insignia, slowly passed overhead. Its searing, sweeping floodlight scythed across the town like a blade.

The floodlight reached Vizsla, and he squinted reflexively, shielding his face with his arm and covering his eyes as little green circles danced in his vision. The floodlight lingered on him, as though judging his fate, before it moved on. The helicopter hovered around lazily for a few more seconds, before it finally began to glide away, disappearing out of sight behind the sterile frames of a newly-built business park.

Swearing, Vizsla blinked his vision clear and continued to walk, reaching the outskirts of the town.

Even here, the signs of General Resource's growing influence were all too evident; huge industrial zones had been gouged out of the surrounding landscape like mortal wounds, created by the systematic clearance of cropland and old hedgerows, and fenced off from the anxious locals by construction fencing and more yet more of those damned security guards.

He wondered if the Erusean occupiers, in their time, had ever defiled his beautiful mother country to this extent. Of course, he had heard the old stories of how the Farbanti elites had once wrung Shilage like a sponge, squeezing it dry to feed their military expansionism... but surely it was never to the level of what General Resource was doing now, where the whole nation was being torn up and rebuilt before his eyes!

Just making the comparison unsettled him. The Eruseans had regarded the Shilagians as a people - an inferior, lesser people, but people nonetheless, worthy of at least some level of respect for their identity.

But these General Resource corporates seemed to have no respect for anyone or anything. They had brought their money and their big ideas, and simply imposed them, as if they saw the Shilagian citizenry as being so incapable of making their own decisions that they needed other people with power and privilege to tell them how to live their lives.

No, it was worse than that. It was clear that General Resource saw the Shilagians not as a people, but as a resource; to be controlled and remade into obedient little money-making machines - and Vizsla was far from alone in suspecting that they were all being used as test subjects for a much greater plan...

He swallowed. Like many Shilagians around him, he could only watch powerlessly as their homeland, having only just reclaimed its independence, was being twisted and reforged into a vision that was not their own. And there wasn't a damn thing anyone could do about it.

At least, not yet.

---

The Salty Sailor
Shilage Castle Town, Western Usea
30 June 2020

Vizsla reached the tavern; an inconspicuous establishment off a small square near the edge of town. It had no signage to indicate its name, but the locals referred to it as the Salty Sailor. Apparently, the sign had been stolen by fleeing royals during the last revolution, whisked away along with various other artifacts from around the town. Nearby was a mossy, dilapidated statue of the late Grand Duke Zoltan Karolyi Macragge Calexus Julius Miguel Istvaan Andre Theodor Charles Rufus de Nagykarolyi Miletus Ursarkar Matyas Corvinus Hunyadi Denes Principautes of Shilage - the last sovereign to rule the throne of the great House Shilage before the dark times. Before the Eruseans.

Stepping inside, Vizsla was greeted with delighted cries. Unlike the streets, devoid as they were of warmth and human emotion, the wide, smoky cellar of the Salty Sailor seemed like a different world. The bar and booths were bustling with people, drinking and shouting loudly as they wasted away the stresses of their days over bubbling drinks and emphatic complaining. There was music and foot-tapping, laughter, and the clanging of huge glass mugs.

The innkeeper gave him a curt, knowing nod, and Vizsla returned it. Pausing only to admire the shapely hindquarters of a passing barmaid, he placidly climbed the stairs leading to the private rooms on the second floor.

Furtively glancing over his shoulder to make sure he hadn't been followed, Vizsla approached one of the doors. He knocked on it surreptitiously, took a breath and cleared his throat, then said,

'There is no war in Ba Sing Se.'

There was a delay, before a muffled voice replied,

'The Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai.'

Looking over his shoulder again, Vizsla swallowed. 'I am honored to accept his invitation.'

The door swung open, revealing only darkness. Gingerly, Vizsla ventured in.

Then he felt a pistol nuzzle coldly against the back of his neck. He immediately froze and raised his hands. The door slammed and a light came on, shining right into his face.

'Check him!' someone hissed.

Hands grabbed him, frisking and groping vigorously all over his body, even in places that he preferred not to be frisked or groped at all.

'All clear!'

The hands receded. For the second time that evening, Vizsla blinked his vision clear. It was a small private room with a single, moldy bed with equally moldy sheets. In the center say a small table covered with empty bottles, still smelling of fine plum brandy and discarded cigarettes. There was no washroom, only a large bucket sitting invitingly in the corner. Perhaps thankfully, it had not yet been used.

Vizsla blinked. Four men were standing around him, all of them armed and bearing patches of the Voslagian Air Force.

The leader, a scowling, peasant-faced man with blond hair and a lean frame, stepped in front of him.

'You took a while.' he said.

'My apologies, Colonel.' replied Jakob Vizsla, Captain of the Shilage House Guard, lowering his hands. He was slightly older than the Voslagians surrounding him, with a stockier build and trimmed brown hair. 'I was delayed.'

'So it would seem.' Wit replied blankly, commanding officer of the Sol Squadron, callsigned Sol Two – apparently not daring to assume the title of 'Sol One' for some reason or other. He holstered his pistol and gestured for his men to do the same. 'This had better be worth our time.'

'I understand.'

'We'll see.'

Vizsla's eye twitched at the subtle barb, but otherwise made no reaction.

'Let's at least hear what he has to say.' said Seymour - Sol Three - adopting a moderating tone.

Nodding, Vizsla cleared his throat. 'I bring you a message on behalf of His Highness, Prince Laszlo Marneus Augustus Calgar Nikola Leonardo Tamas Ferenc Loken de la Ponte Puissances of Shilage.'

The Sol Squadron said nothing, waiting in quiet expectation. A message from Prince Laszlo - the current ruling sovereign of Shilage, and more importantly, a blood-relative of the great Mihaly A. Shilage himself - was something they felt obliged to regard with the utmost seriousness. Even if they quietly resented his leadership, not least being his decision to allow General Resource into the country to begin with.

'Negotiations with General Resource have collapsed.' Vizsla continued. 'That devil Gilbert Park has forced His Highness to sign contracts that have turned over control of our critical infrastructure to GR-owned subsidiaries. This country... is theirs now.'

'We can see that.' snarked Hermann, Sol Four.

'And your great and wise Prince could not come here and tell us that himself?' needled Roald - Sol Five - raising an eyebrow.

'No, he could not.' Vizsla replied blankly. 'General Resource grows suspicious even of him. He must not be seen to leave the castle; General Resource has not yet taken it over, but they fully intend to - and they are always watching for an opportunity. Any absence of His Highness would give them more than enough reason to attempt a hostile takeover.'

'Then he should have realized that sooner.' Wit said bitterly. 'So, what does he plan to do about it?'

'His Highness wishes to ask you for help.' Vizsla answered. 'To help us in... doing something about General Resource.'

A collective sigh fell across the room.

'Looks like he finally located his testicles.' mumbled Roald.

'At least he got hold of them before General Resource did.' concurred Hermann. 'Let's just hope it's not too little too late.'

'Lock it down, both of you.' Seymour growled.

'So after he welcomes General Resource into this land on a red carpet, and lets them run amok...' Wit recounted caustically. 'Now he has the audacity to come to us for help? Thinking we'll just come in and fix his problem?'

The Captain of the Shilage House Guard pursed his lip, trying to withstand the barrage of insults hurled against his sovereign. 'Possibly.' he said as levelly as possible, having to restrain himself from indignantly firing back with some emotionally-charged remarks of his own.

'How intriguing...' Wit mused.

'Quite so.' Vizsla said. 'So, what say you?'

'We can't commit before knowing what exactly we're getting into.' said Seymour. 'I am sorry, but Prince Laszlo has made some very questionable decisions of late.'

'We don't trust him.' Roald said, curtly summarizing the Sol Team's feelings in a single sentence. 'How do we know that this apparent change of heart isn't a trap?'

'He could be trying to sell us out.' Hermann chipped in.

'The whole reason we are in this situation is because he let General Resource into the country.' Wit added. 'I was there when those scheming corporates flaunted their obscene wealth in front of him. And I was there when he fell for the temptation and accepted their offer. Why did he not refuse? We would have gladly gone to war to support him in that.'

'I know you are all concerned and suspicious about His Highness' intentions.' Vizsla said tensely. 'But you must believe me when I say that he understands the price of going to war, better than any of us will ever know. He has done everything he can to keep this country at peace, in full accordance with the teachings of his late father, the great Grand Duke Zoltan, who strove to uphold peace-'

'And look where that "peace" has brought us!' Wit interjected venomously, cutting him off. 'Look around! That stupid and childish policy has brought us all nothing but slavery and ruin!'

That was the last straw.

'Shut up!' Vizsla snapped back, finally raising his voice. Three pistols from the rest of the Sol Squadron went up in response, but Vizsla was undeterred. 'Do you not think His Highness knows that already? He was committed to preserving the peace of his people by keeping them away from conflict as much as possible, and if that meant parleying with people like General Resource, then so be it! But His Highness is neither stupid nor childish; he has always been fully aware of the risks. And now, having exhausted every possible diplomatic option, he recognizes that the risks of peace now outweigh the risks of war - because if these General Resource snakes get their way, there won't be a Shilagian people left to protect; just a hive of mindless corporate drones!'

Vizsla paused to wipe his mouth. He was breathing heavily, and his hands were shaking. The Sol Team all looked at each other, hesitating. Their sidearms wavered, then lowered.

'I don't know what His Highness wants from you.' Vizsla went on quietly. 'But he is ready to issue a call to arms. And this would certainly be his last chance at doing so. Peace has become more costly for the peace of the Shilagian people than war, and so war we shall have. This is the point we have reached.'

There was a moment of silence as Vizsla recovered himself, and the Sol Team contemplated their options. Wit was the first to speak.

'... I believe you.' he said. Vizsla glared at him.

'Do you really?'

Wit nodded slowly. 'If he truly is committed to his people, and has been entertaining General Resource out of genuine concern for their wellbeing, then he will have regained my respect.'

Vizsla said nothing, waiting for the inevitable "But".

'But,' Yep, there it was. 'In that case, why does he need a favor from us before he gives us his blessing? Surely he could just commit his resources now, rather than play these silly games with us, hiding in the shadows.'

'The blessing of a Prince of Shilage is not one to be given lightly.' Vizsla said, narrowing his eyes again. 'You of all people should know that, Wit.'

Wit blinked, suddenly reminded again of Mihaly; for indeed, it was Mihaly who had once ruled the skies as though it were his own kingdom. He had single-handedly held that rule for decades, by himself, swatting down any and all would-be challengers with extreme prejudice. Entrusting the future of that rule to the next generation - not just to the Sol Squadron, but also to that bastard Three Strikes - had certainly not been a decision that came easily for him...

Visibly faltering, Wit looked at his team - they were staring back at him, silently and gravely. Wit knew the look; it was the same look they all once had during the last war, when they debated the decision to break way from the Erusean military to chase their own destiny. Once again, as then, all of the old rules that had governed their world had fallen away. The only thing that mattered was survival... and they knew they couldn't do it alone.

'I suppose Prince Laszlo is still well-regarded by the people.' Seymour noted. 'Although we may question the decisions he has made, he could still prove to be a more powerful ally than we realize.'

'But, as you say, he has had trouble doing the right thing before.' Hermann countered. 'What makes you think things would be any different this time around?'

Wit paced around, deep in thought. As the Sol Squadron's appointed leader, no matter what arguments were raised from either side, the final decision ultimately rested with him.

Finally, he looked Vizsla straight in the eye.

'... Fine.' Wit said. 'We will listen to what he has to say. But only afterwards will we decide whether or not to accept his request. And we reserve the right to walk away if we don't like what we hear.'

Vizsla nodded judiciously. 'Very well.' he said, straightening up as if coming to attention. 'I accept your terms.'

'So what happens now?' asked Roald. 'I doubt all five of us can enter the castle without drawing General Resource's attention, and that assumes we make it there before the guards stop us.'

'We would like to avoid that.' Wit agreed. 'But we may not have much choice.'

Shifting to the stand easy position, Vizsla gave a wry grin. '... Actually, I think we do.'

---

The tavern's undercroft was warm and musty. Scented, incensed candlelamps hung from the walls. Vizsla had led the Sol Team down from the private rooms and - pausing only for a short, quiet word with the innkeeper - brought them into the cellars. Down here, the sounds of celebration from the other patrons had been dulled, but still nowhere near quiet.

They passed by shelves of pantry items, bursting with rustic treats - bottles of rich olive oil, jars of pickled onion and sauerkraut, cured meat and hardened cheese wheels, and sacks of flour.

Then the air became sweet and oddly enticing; past the pantry shelves were racks of huge barrels of fragrant plum brandy, stretching far back into the gloom, assorted in neat rows like soldiers on parade.

Vizsla began surveying the barrels as if looking for something. Behind him, the Sol Team waited, arms crossed expectantly.

'You didn't bring us all the way down here for a drink, did you?' Wit asked, only half-seriously.

'No.' Vizsla replied, without looking up. 'But that is what we want people to think.'

He crouched down and put his ear to another barrel, slapping its side twice. Listening for a moment, he stood back up.

'Okay, this is the one.' he said. 'Whatever you are about to see does not leave this room. Or anywhere else, really.'

'Oh, so is this where the good stuff is kept?' Hermann asked dryly.

Vizsla smiled mirthlessly. 'You could say that.'

He opened the tap on the barrel. The Sol Team stepped back, apparently expecting a flood of fragrant spirits to come gushing out onto the floor. But instead, for a single, awkward second, nothing happened.

'It's... empty?' Seymour said.

Then the barrel lid popped out and flopped onto the ground, releasing a cloud of dust and a burst of cold, damp-smelling air. Inside was only darkness - darker even than that of the gloomy undercroft. Intrigued, the Sol Team gingerly peered in - it quickly became clear that the barrel was no barrel at all, but instead an entryway into the underworld...

'This passage,' Vizsla said, lowering his voice. 'Leads to the Catacombs.'

'The Catacombs...?' Seymour double-took, incredulous. 'But that's just a legend!'

'They were supposed to have all collapsed during the Revolution.' Wit added. 'At least, that's what the Eruseans told us in school...'

'And that's what my forefathers told them.' Vizsla said. 'In truth, the Catacombs still exist, and remain Shilage's most precious secret. For this reason, we have deliberately curtailed its use until now. But, as General Resource consolidates its control over the surface, I believe it is only a matter of time before they discover it - so, better if we can use it against them first before that happens.'

'Where does it go?' asked Roald, sticking his head into the darkness.

'To the castle, among other places.' Vizsla replied mildly. 'But even I do not know their full extent. There are only two people alive today that do, and one of them is His Highness Prince Laszlo himself.'

'And the other person?' Wit asked.

Vizsla gave him a look that left little doubt as to the answer.

---

Shilage Catacombs, Western Usea
30 May 2020

Jakob Vizsla led the team into the catacombs, holding up an oil lamp to light the way. Following its amber glow, they descended through a series of rocky passages.

From the walls, ancient chemical lights strung from mottled, weathered piping like diseased arteries. The lights came and went in dull, gentle pulses, occasionally flickering from their decades of neglect. The craggy, jagged cave walls seemed to soak up the diffused light like sponges, making pools of cool, blue light in the gloom. The air was dry and sterile, smelling only very faintly of minerals. And it was quiet, suffocatingly so, with the only sounds to be heard being the crunching of their boots on the rocky surface.

'This is the way.' Vizsla announced. 'Stay close to me. Do not fall behind, and most certainly do not go wandering off.'

The Sol Team followed him, looking around as they went in solemn, awestruck silence.

They went deeper. The passages began to fork and converge, seemingly at random. Many had visibly caved in, but there were others that stretched into the yawning darkness. And it was getting harder to tell whether they were even going up or down, or how close they were to an exit. Wit could not help but keep shooting wary glances at Vizsla, who by contrast was relaxedly walking as though he knew exactly where he was going.

Maybe he actually does know this place. Wit mused.

Now they were coming across skeletons. The first one they saw surprised the four Voslagians, while Vizsla simply kept walking. And there were more of them the farther they went - some were slumped against the walls, others were twisted and broken as though struck down into battle. Most of them still bore the torn fatigues and weapons of the old Shilage House Guard, but there were others that were not wearing uniforms at all. All of them grisly testaments of events long past.

Wit stopped to inspect one. Unlike the others, this one was dressed in old Belkan splinter camouflage, with its desiccated skull seemingly twisted in an expression of pure hatred. A sack of gleaming gold coins - remarkably well-preserved given its apparently age - lay beside it.

'There was... a battle here.' Wit observed, rejoining the group.

'Yes.' confirmed Vizsla. 'As you know, there was a Revolution that ousted the Shilage family from power. They were betrayed from within. The castle was besieged, and they fled through here. Both your Mihaly and my Prince Laszlo were among them.'

'And they were pursued?'

'What you see around you are the final moments and resting places of the combatants.'

And soon it could be our turn. Wit thought morbidly. There was no need to say it aloud - the same thought had already occurred to everyone else.

He swallowed. As a fighter pilot, accustomed to flying freely through the endless skies, the thought of conducting close-quarters battle in these blind, claustrophobic catacombs was enough to make him sweat.

'It's a tomb.' Seymour breathed, the realization hitting him at last. 'This whole place is a huge, unmarked tomb.'

'Yes. A reminder of the steep price of war.' Vizsla said sagely. 'And it has laid silently beneath our feet for longer than either of us have been alive.'

'Damn...'

'So... I would ask that you please remember that when you are speaking to His Highness.'

The Sol Team all looked at each other. At this point, none of them felt inclined to disagree.

---

Shilage Castle, Western Usea
1 June 2020

Eventually, the darkness began to melt. Warm orange light and the hard smell of burning wax seeped into the gloom. The tunnel had now wound itself into an upward spiral staircase lined with dressed stonework and candlelamps - which was clue enough for the Sol Team to guess, with collective sighs of great relief, that they were now directly beneath the hill of Shilage Castle itself. The end of their long, macabre journey through the underworld was finally in sight.

The group emerged from the back of a mahogany cabinet. Carefully negotiating a hedge of bottles of fine, aromatic plum brandy, they crawled out into a small storage room in the castle's basement, illuminated by a single incandescent globe. The walls were hardened masonry, and so was the floor.

They knew where they were. As Vizsla turned out the lamp and set it atop the cabinet, Wit spoke to him.

'Thank you, Captain.' he said. 'For showing us the way.'

'I am but a humble servant.' Vizsla replied with a slight bow. 'But you are welcome.'

'We had no idea that all of that was down there...'

'Good.'

'When can we see the Prince?'

'His Highness will be waiting for you in the Upper Conference Chamber at ten-hundred hours tomorrow morning.' Vizsla answered. 'Do not be late. Until then, I suggest you get some sleep - you've all had a long night.'

Wit nodded. 'We should be able to find our old quarters from here.'

'Then good night to you, Colonel.' said Vizsla. 'Whatever it is you decide to do, I wish you well.'

And with that, the Captain of the Shilage House Guard turned on his heel and marched away. The Sol Team watched after him, with Wit in particular holding a quiet, newfound respect for the man.

Perhaps maybe, he thought, feeling cautiously positive for the first time in a very long while. Just maybe... This country might be in good hands after all.

---

The Upper Conference Chamber
Shilage Castle, Western Usea
1 June 2020

Rested and changed into full dress blues, Wit and the Sol Squadron were duly ushered into the conference room by two Shilage House Guardsmen.

The conference room was well-appointed, with a thick carpet of deep red velvet and the walls paneled and sculpted with the utmost care. Unusually, the curtains were closed - their embroidered, damasked patterns on a rare full display. Lumination came from an Estovakian-style chandelier hanging from below a mosaic, frescoed ceiling that depicted two horses; one at night, one at day. A keen-eyed viewer would also have noticed a winged unicorn in the background, wings spread like black sheathes and raining thunder upon the land.

A long oaken table sat in the center of the room. Normally it would be lined with a flowing white cloth and decorative flowers, but today it had been piled with intel briefs, photographs, and a large, man-sized map of Shilage spread open across its surface. There were three people seated together at the table, apparently having spent many hours studying and planning beforehand. All of them rose in greeting when the Sol Team entered.

The first man, dominating the head of the table, was Prince Laszlo Marneus Augustus Calgar Nikola Leonardo Tamas Ferenc Loken de la Ponte Puissances of Shilage - the last Prince of the nation and younger brother of Mihaly. Even now, having seen his face more times than he cared to count, Wit found himself struck by his resemblance to Mihaly - he had the same sharp, steel-blue eyes, and his hair was the same shade of aged silver, albeit styled differently; short, and neatly-trimmed. Unusually, he was also wearing full military dress, a black tunic, masterfully-tailored, with golden adornments and symbols of honor that denoted his status as Prince. And now, having learned so much more about his background, Wit suddenly found it hard to look him in the eye.

At his side was Jakob Vizsla, Captain of the Shilage House Guard. Marker in hand, he was dressed in an olive tunic, crisply-ironed with gold epaulettes and a peaked cap - a far cry from the loose-fitting flannel he'd been wearing yesterday, and an outfit far more befitting of his professional, if somewhat stiff, manner. An impressive look, one that seemed suited to demanding - and commanding - respect.

But it was the third and final man at the table that made the Sol Team collectively stop and double-take. He was a tall man, with wide shoulders and meaty fists, huge like a crab's claws. His face was judging and severe - an ugly scar ran down the left side of his face, with an eyepatch to match. And his uniform was different too - a sky blue tunic with a yellow trim, and the gorget of a Brigadier-General.

The Sol Team recognized it immediately, for it was the same uniform that they were wearing; the man, like them, was Voslagian.

This is a military discussion. Wit surmised, glancing again at the map on the table. An obvious conclusion, given the stark absence of any civilian representatives in the room, but one that made him tense in anticipation as the House Guardsmen dutifully shut the door behind them.

Just what have they planned for us? he wondered, suddenly feeling as though he'd walked straight into a lion's den, knowing nothing about lion's except that they were members of the cat family. Despite Vizsla's assurances and revelations, a part of Wit had still suspected that Prince Laszlo really had summoned them for a private chat where he'd waffle on about peace and justice for half the day, punctuating each platitude with subtle, only half-joking jabs at Mihaly.

But now, none of that seemed so likely anymore.

Snapping to attention, Wit saluted. The rest of the Sol Team followed suit.

'Sol Squadron reporting as ordered!' he barked.

'Welcome, gentlemen.' said Prince Laszlo, his voice low and serious. He was not smiling. 'Your presence has been expected. Please, be seated.'

'Thank you, sir.'

They were seated.

'Firstly,' Laszlo began, gesturing at the eyepatched Voslagian officer beside him. 'May I introduce Brigadier-General Valentin Jurge of the Voslagian Army. His primary task has been the rebuilding of the armed forces of Voslage.'

'Sir.' Wit acknowledged.

'Colonel.' Jurge returned.

'He is ex-Erusean forces. Just like you.' Laszlo said, before addressing Jurge, 'Valentin, this is Colonel Wit of the Voslagian Air Force, along with Major Seymour, and First Lieutenants Hermann and Roald. Their squadron had been responsible for defending Shilage's air space.' Then his expression darkened. 'Until recently.'

'Your wartime missions were known to me.' Jurge said, curt and professional. His expression was tight and unchanging. 'Always a pleasure to meet fellow Voslagians.'

'I'm flattered you know of us, sir.' Wit said levelly. There was something about General Jurge's demeanor that made him uneasy, but he shook it off - perhaps it was the eyepatch. 'But you're a long way from Odryssa.'

'I am still there, on paper.'

'How many times have you visited Shilage before now?'

'Once or twice.'

'Recently?' Wit pressed.

'Possibly.'

'It should go without saying,' Prince Laszlo qualified. 'That General Jurge's presence here is to be kept under the utmost discretion.'

Wit nodded. 'Understood.'

'Excellent.' Laszlo said. 'Now then. For your benefit, I must explain I have called you here. As we are all aware, the spread of General Resource has been a plague, infecting this land. Their excesses and abuses have trampled upon our sovereignty, and I believe we are all in agreement when I assert they will not stop here.'

Wit blinked. Up until now, he had only seen the old Prince speak positively or make concessions on all things General Resource. Never before had he seen him describe them with words so scathing and hostile - up until now, he really believed that the old Prince was a pro-corporate shill. But now...

'The Republic of Voslage also agrees with this assessment.' said General Jurge. 'Three weeks ago, our President accepted an invitation from Prince Laszlo to dispatch our troops to secure and protect Shilage Castle.'

'That... would be an invasion.' Seymour observed, taking a second to digest the implications.

'Yes it would.' General Jurge said bluntly, as if he'd just been told that some species of bird could be trained to fly.

He gestured at the large map of Shilage, placing a finger on the Shilagian border with neighboring Voslage.

'There is currently a Voslagian Army battlegroup on live-fire maneuvers in this area.' Jurge said. 'Of course, the maneuvers are a pretext; at my command, they will cross the border into Shilage and secure this castle, engaging and defeating the General Resource Defense Forces along the way. We will assume temporary control of Shilage's defense from that point onwards.'

From the corner of his eye, Wit noticed Prince Laszlo's expression ever so slightly harden.

'If we must have foreign soldiers on our soil,' Laszlo said tightly, answering the Sol Team's unspoken question. 'Then better that they be foreign soldiers that we can trust.' He paused, fully aware that he was staking not only his nation's sovereignty, but also his own personal reputation as its ruler. 'I realize it is a crude solution. But right now, we have no other option left to us.'

Jurge addressed the Sol Team, 'If you are not comfortable with this, the time to object is now. This operation requires nothing less than total commitment.'

The Sol Squadron all looked at each other, but none of them objected. An invasion of Shilage by their fellow Voslagian countrymen was not what any of them had been expecting, and it was clear that not even Prince Laszlo was comfortable with the idea. But this - as Laszlo himself had admitted - was still the best, and possibly only chance to remove General Resource from Shilage for good. Before it became too late to do anything at all.

'... We're in.' Wit affirmed, breaking his team's silence first. 'General Resource defiles this country. As long as they're here, this land will never know peace. We will not pass up this chance to destroy them, once and for all.'

'Nor shall I.' Prince Laszlo said, his voice weary and frustrated. Once again, Wit found himself struck by the change of tone from the Prince. 'From the moment General Resource first arrived, I had been deeply suspicious of them. But I also knew we were too weak to resist by ourselves. I had taken every measure to appear amiable and reasonable, all while plotting against them in secret.'

'So this was your plan?' Wit asked. 'All that negotiating, all those concessions made...'

'It was to buy time.' Laszlo said. His tone was grave and heavy. 'Time enough for me to contact the President of brotherly Voslage and request his support. In these times, we can rely on no one but ourselves - and those who have proved willing to stand with us in our bleakest hours.'

'We had been negotiating in secret.' Jurge added. 'Courtesy of the Shilage Catacombs, discrete contact between us was relatively trivial.'

'The cost of buying that time was great.' Laszlo said, grimly. 'But it was enough. Now, finally, our plans have come to fruition. Every possible measure is in place. All preparations for battle are complete - save one.'

Wit raised an eyebrow. 'And what's that?'

'It has come to our attention that the General Resource Defense Force has garrisoned a squadron of advanced fighter aircraft underneath this very castle. In the old underground highway.'

'Those planes are more advanced than anything in our arsenal.' Jurge added. 'So long as they are active, our operation will fail.'

'We are also aware that your old planes - the Su-30s - are still there as well.' Laszlo pointed out. 'No doubt they have sitting in the back this whole time, collecting dust.'

'So your task is two-fold,' said Jurge. 'Disable General Resource's advanced fighter planes, and reclaim your own. If you can accomplish that before they can launch, the Voslagian Army can retake Shilage.'

Wit nodded, but immediately noticed a problem. 'A sound plan, considering what we have to work with.' he said as diplomatically as possible.

'You disagree?' Jurge asked, with a hard expression.

'The underground hangars will be well-guarded.' Wit said. 'Even knowing the layout, it will be difficult for the four of us to take on the guards.'

'I can assist you with that.' said Captain Vizsla, speaking up. 'I will take what guardsmen I have left and engage the enemy in a full frontal assault. That should create enough of a diversion for the four of you to get to your planes.

Wit gave him a look of newfound respect. Without even a moment's hesitation, he had just offered up himself - and his own men - as bait. 'Understood...' he said gravely. 'Thank you, Captain.'

'It would be my honor.' Vizsla replied coolly.

'Then it is decided.' Prince Laszlo said, nodding judiciously. 'We shall commence our uprising in five days' time. All of us know our movements and our roles. Let us use our remaining time to complete any final preparations to be made. And good luck, to each one of you. I wish you all well.'

The meeting was adjourned. Brigadier-General Jurge were the first to depart, making only token farewell gestures before striding out. Captain Vizsla went with him - no doubt to guide the Voslagian General through the Catacombs and smuggle him back out of the country.

That just left Prince Laszlo and the Sol Squadron, still in the room as they got up to leave.

'Wit, Seymour, Hermann, Roald,' Prince Laszlo said, beckoning to them at the door with a hook of his fingers. 'A moment with the four of you, if you please? There is one other thing I wish to ask of you. A favor.'

Curious and slightly wary, the Sol Team gingerly huddled in. They had not been expecting this.

'We're listening.' Wit said.

'As you all may know,' Laszlo said, with a low voice. 'I... have no living heirs to take the throne after my passing. Normally, it would be inherited by my younger brother Mihaly, whom I am sure you are all familiar with. But he is bedridden, and he has already disowned our household in any case - he cannot rule either.'

'So that means...' Seymour began.

'When I pass, House Shilage will have no one.' Laszlo finished. 'No one, that is, except my two young grand-nieces; Ionela, and Alma. They are the last ones currently in the line of succession of this great and storied family. And so, they - and only they - shall have the right to rule this land after me.'

'What would you like us to do?' Wit asked.

'Guarantee their safety.' Laszlo said. 'And I shall promise you my full and unwavering support; throughout our mutual struggle with General Resource, and through whatever other trials should await you beyond.'

Wit briefly ran his tongue down in front of his teeth thoughtfully. So far as he knew, Ionela and Alma were still at the Space Elevator - an area he knew was under the control of General Resource. For it was there those devils had first based themselves, using its facilities and political value to stage their excursions into places like Shilage. If word were to reach them that Prince Laszlo was involved in the imminent uprising...

Wit didn't want to think about the repercussions. It was certainly not an easy request, fraught as was with great risk... but it was one that they had to take.

There's only one person who could possibly help us here, he thought darkly. I'd better contact him now, before it becomes too late.

He looked at Seymour, then to Hermann, and Roald. All of them were thinking the same thing, and all were of the same mind - they nodded at him.

'You have our word, Your Highness.' Wit said, accepting the favor at last. 'We had watched over them once before already, during our time with Mihaly. It will be our honor to do so again. We will protect them. And we'll bring them back.'

For the first time in the entire night, Prince Laszlo managed a weak smile. 'You have my sincerest gratitude, gentlemen.' he said sagely. His voice was shaking, as though a great weight had suddenly been lifted from him. 'Go in peace. And may we all meet again on the right side of history.'

You and me both. Wit reflected.

---

As soon as the meeting ended, the Sol Team returned hurriedly to their old ready room. Everything was more or less exactly as they had left it; it was dry and dusty, and the air still smelled of tobacco, aged now by about several months of non-ventilated air flow.

Wit made a beeline straight for the old telephone hanging off the wall. Unhooking the receiver, he pressed it to his ear and worked the dial. The antique phone rang out for a minute, before a stern voice answered on the other side,

«Schroeder speaking.»

'It's Wit.'

«Wit?» Doctor Schroeder's tone was surprised for a fleeting second, before the man's usual calm demeanor re-asserted itself. «Hmph. I was wondering when you would contact me.»

'I would have preferred not at all.' Wit said. 'But we're all making sacrifices here.'

«Something on your mind?»

'Our squadron will be participating in an uprising to expel General Resource from Shilage. Tomorrow.'

«That's... good news.» Schroeder said impassively. «But you did not contact me to ask for my support, did you?»

'No. But we need your help with something else.'

«I'm listening.»

'At the Space Elevator are Mihaly's granddaughters, Ionela and Alma.' Wit said. 'They will both be at risk of retaliation once General Resource figures out what we're about to do in Shilage. I'm... asking you to protect them, for us.' Wit had to force the words out. He hated the man, and disquietly resented having to ask him, of all people, for help. But Doctor Schroeder really was their best and only option.

'The future of Shilage's national restoration depends on it.' he stressed.

There was a pause. «... Alright. I'll take care of them.»

That was quick. Wit thought, mildly surprised. In truth, he was expecting Schroeder to demand an explanation, or even outright refuse. Well, so much the better...

'Thank you.' he said, exhaling.

«As it happens, I have some news for you as well.» Schroeder said, and Wit tightened his lips in anticipation. «My own plans are nearing their completion; my armies and resources have been assembled for battle against General Resource. The time for us to strike against them is upon us. I am calling on you, and the rest of the Sol Squadron, to assist me in this effort.»

'Your timing could have been better.' Wit said sourly.

«Our campaign begins tomorrow. First, we will secure the Space Elevator. Can I count on your support?»

Wit covered the receiver, and looked to his team. After a moment's collective thought, they nodded at him, gingerly.

'... Understood.' Wit said. 'Give us five days to settle our affairs here in Shilage. Then we will join you.'

«That is acceptable.» Schroeder answered, sounding unusually reasonable. Perhaps he had really changed his ways after all? No, surely that was impossible... «In that case, I shall speak to you later. Good evening.»

'And you.'

Breathing a sigh of relief, Wit replaced the handset, and turned back to face his team.

'It's done.' he said.

'Are we sure we can trust him?' Hermann asked. 'After what he did to King...'

'He is opposed to General Resource, which is more than most can say.' Wit said. 'More to the point, we already promised to support his cause. This is least he can do for us in return.'

'That is an understatement.' Seymour said sourly.

'Whatever it is, it's out of our control now.' Wit said, now feeling confident enough to carry out his tasks with a clear and focused mind. 'All we can do... is to do the best we can in our current circumstances.'

He smiled blandly. Doctor Schroeder had taught him that.

---

GRDF Shilage Airbase
(Formerly known as the Queen Madeleine Celcia Marie Claire Fantine Alianor d'Aquitaine D'Elise Tunnel, Trans-Erusea Highway)
Shilage Castle, Western Usea
6 June 2020

The first sunlight of a new day crested the valley hilltops. Tufts of damp mist wisped up from the wet grass, glistening with dew. The air was warm, and tinged with the smell of burning jet fuel.

The F-16XL Sakerfalcon roared down the length of the old highway, belching out 17,000 pounds of thrust from its GE F110 engine, afterburner flaring starkly in the low dawn light. Flexing its elevators, the cranked arrow strike fighter heaved upwards, taking lift and climbing away into the sleepy sky, navigation lights flickering like the stars fading away around it.

Meanwhile, the next plane in line - an F-16AFTI Gyrfalcon - was already taxiing into position, repeating the sequence as it spurted into life. And there were more of them still, spilling out from the tunnel entrance like old spinsters sensing that their hours had come.

There were more planes taking off than usual today. Apparently there was some sort of incident at the Space Elevator that caused the GRDF to mobilize, but the details were sketchy.

At least, that was what Warrant Officer Baelz - GRDF security officer - had been told.

Well, she saw no need to concern herself with the details. That wasn't her job. Her job was to man the security kiosk that controlled the boomgate leading to the highway from Shilage Castle. Her role, put very simply, was to stand guard and keep the locals out, in this rickety little prefab, in 36-hour shifts.

It was a shit job, but one that Baelz was willing to take. In fact, she embraced it, to the extent where it was almost a point of pride for her. It was something that set her apart from many of her fellow GRDF colleagues, who came from comfortable middle-class families in places like Osea and Aurelia; places that had forgotten - or perhaps never known - the hardships of war and human sweat.

Looming in the background outside the window was the huge, stony frontage of Shilage Castle. She scowled. Just looking at it made her angry.

Fifteen years ago, her older brother - Leonard - had been killed by the Erusean Army during the Continental War. She hated them for that. And she hated the ISAF too, for failing to protect him. She was determined to follow in his footsteps and avenge his death, but not in service to those she held responsible. And so, taking this private security gig at General Resource – even with its shitty hours and working conditions - was the natural choice. For it was General Resource that had rebuilt her hometown, and had given her a chance to live the life that her brother couldn't. For that, she was willing to do anything for them.

She therefore considered herself blessed to be assigned guard duty here in Shilage - a former Erusean territory whose people had once gleefully joined in the subjugation and oppression of her own- only when things started going badly did they start crying their big crocodile tears about being victims of Erusea's "exploitation", and spouting their feel-good buzzwords like "restoration" and "independence"... as if any of them actually understood what those words even meant.

Baelz had no respect for them. As far as she was concerned, these "Shilagians" were all still Eruseans: bastards, one and all.

Now here she was, finally having an outlet for all of her years of pent-up hatred and resentment. There were no rules or regulations to stop her, either. Any time she felt sad, angry, or simply missed her brother's company, she would make herself feel better by going into town and harassing civilians in the street, and then later pig out on buckets of ice cream.

Sighing, she leaned back in her chair and reached for her breakfast; a half-eaten box of Timbits. She finished the pack, sucking the frosting off her fingers before washing it all down with a gulp of GR Awndo - the thirst mutilator! - and then sat there contentedly like a potato, relaxed.

Then she belched.

Yep... she reflected, feeling the sugary electrolytes energize her bitter, sleep-deprived body. Life doesn't get any better than this.

Suddenly, she sat up, alert. She had heard something. At first she thought it was coming from the tunnels, or from the planes taking off, but she had all of those in full view. No, the sound was coming from the road. It was a sound she had not heard in a long, long time...

It was the sound of marching jackboots. And they were getting closer.

Seizing her MP5 submachine gun and putting on her GR-branded baseball cap, she bolted out of the sentry kiosk and came face to face the stuff of her nightmares.

A full company of huge, columned soldiers were hammering down the road from Shilage Castle in full parade dress. A banner, depicting a scowling sun, was flapping in the breeze. Their uniforms were a shade of dusky olive, flawlessly-ironed with silver braiding and insignia, and the same angry sun emblems pinned on the fronts of their shining peaked caps. Rifles - old-looking antiques from the last century, with polished bayonets gleaming in the morning sun - were clasped across their chests, clattering mutely as their wielders stamped along.

Their marching form was impeccable, even Baelz would admit. Their ranks spanned the entire road, looming towards Baelz and her little boom gate like a tsunami, ominous and inexorable, ready to crash through.

The commander of the formation, a stocky dark-haired man with a red sash and gold epaulettes, barked out something in a language Baelz did not understand. But, at his word, the uniformed tide halted with a final, resounding stamp, less than six feet from the boundary line.

Baelz met his eyes. They were hard; determined and impassive... Baelz knew the look.

A distant memory flashed through her mind. She hesitated for a moment, a delayed reaction as her mind forcibly reasserted control over her deepest, innermost fears that had so suddenly surfaced after fifteen years of dormancy.

I... I can do this! she willed. I won't let myself be intimidated by these half-assed Erusean hick-town little shits playing soldier! Not anymore!

Mustering up her courage at last, she stepped forward.

'Halt!' she snapped. 'This area is restricted to General Resource Defense Force employees only! Identify yourselves!'

The uniformed commander took one pace forward, meeting her challenge. 'This is our land.' he growled in a low, contemptful voice. 'And we are its rightful custodians.'

Undeterred, Baelz flicked the safety off her MP5. 'You are not authorized to be here!'

'You should have looked beyond your mirror then.'

Saying that, Jakob Vizsla - Captain of the Shilage House Guard - levelled his Stgw-57 rifle and blew her head off.

---

The shot seemed to ring out, lingering like an unwelcome memory.

Breaking formation, the Shilage House Guardsmen stormed through the checkpoint, their vintage weapons blazing and battle cries screaming as they surged forward. They smashed through the barricade, just as another GRDF security guard had come to investigate the disturbance.

'What in Sam Hill-...'

Charging in, Vizsla bayoneted the surprised trooper right through the throat.

'Advance!' he yelled, waving his men onward. The adrenaline was kicking in. 'Advance! Advance and secure the tunnel entrances! Shilage will not fall again! Shilage will not fall!'

The GRDF fighter planes were still on the taxiway, fully visible and exposed. Vizsla took aim at a taxiing F-16AFTI Gyrfalcon, leaned forward, and fired a burst at the cockpit. The glass shattered, and so did the contents of the pilot's flight helmet.

«Commander, no! Where'd your head go?!»

«Someone shot his face! His only weakness!»

The stricken Gyrfalcon drifted left, sliding aimlessly off the taxiway and onto the astroturf.

Captain Vizsla grinned. He knew all too well that fighter planes were frightening opponents for any ground pounder - on some nights, he would wake up in a cold sweat, haunted by nightmarish memories of a thrice-scratched Osean fighter plane, raining death upon his land and his people like the Razgriz itself. He could still hear the air raid sirens, the exploding bombs and the screams of the people, the roar of jet engines...

But that was only once they got in the air. On the ground, they were vulnerable, brittle, helpless things. Even something as simple as shooting up the cockpit could take a plane out of commission for days, days where it would not be tipping the balance of a battle, or even a war. And if there was a pilot inside at the time, well, so much the better.

A shaped-charge warhead lanced out from the charging guardsmen, punching into the fuselage of another Gyrfalcon, the force of the blast splitting the aircraft in two. The F-16XL Sakerfalcon trailing behind it swerved hard right, so hard that it flipped over and tumbled off the taxiway, plowing into a ditch in a broken heap. Several bursts of automatic rifle fire put an inglorious end to its contribution to General Resource's domination of Shilage.

Vizsla drew a bead on a fleeing GR tractor tug, its panicked driver so desperate to get away as to be barely aware that he was punting and crushing his own colleagues as he went. Exhaling, Vizsla fired, dropping him at the wheel. The tug swerved hard left, squelching three more GR workers caught in its path, before cratering into a parked AH-66 Commanche helicopter.

'We've been tricked, backstabbed, and quite possibly bamboozled!' a GRDF guard exclaimed from behind the cover of a fuel barrel, magdumping his MP7 to no visible effect.

'This is nothing like my doujins!' screamed another, turning and bolting for the tunnels.

Sensing an opening, Vizsla waved his Guardsmen forward. Between the wrecked planes and hastily-discarded equipment, there was no shortage of cover. They quickly took up firing positions in good, well-disciplined order. They were all combat veterans; former-Erusean forces that had cut their teeth during the war, fighting on battlefields all over Usea. They had known suffering, loss, and most of all, death itself. Those that had survived the war were tough and battle-tested - a stark contrast to their GRDF opponents, many of whom were still tottering around in a panicked, confused daze...

'I wish I stayed home and played the new Call of Duty! This is so not cash money!'

'My cabbages!'

'I swear I'll never bully civilians again!'

Their retaliation fire was sporadic and disorganized; a few badly-aimed bursts spattered and chopped around the Shilagian guardsmen, and none of them scored. Vizsla smiled again - for all of General Resource's advanced hardware and corporate funding, it was clear that the people who wielded them were unfit and unprepared for real combat.

While his men advanced, Vizsla ducked in behind the wreckage of the upturned Sakerfalcon and unclipped a handheld radio from his belt.

'Wit, Ice King, this is Seraphin.' he said. 'We've destroyed several GR fighter planes while they were taking off. I don't know what their mission was, but they won't be launching again anytime soon. Move in! Repeat, move in!'

«Seraphin, Ice King.» came the first response, clipped and curt. «Roger, moving in. Out.»

«Understood.» came the other.

Vizsla put down the radio. Shifting targets again, he stalked forward, laying down a steady stream of walking gunfire, stopping only to change mags. Already, his Guardsmen had claimed complete surprise and fire superiority.

But for how much longer?

That much, Vizsla quietly feared, depended very much on his allies...

---

The Black Forest
Near the Shilage-Voslage Border, Western Usea
6 June 2020

Dappled sunlight was filtering in through the ancient tree canopy. Ferns and moss had been spread across the forest floor in a huge carpet, wiggling and scraping between pillared columns of black-trunked trees with even darker leaves. Every glade and hollow was a beckoning, mysterious realm of shadow. The gentle dripping of a nearby creek echoed through the wood spaces, as did the intermittent whoops and whistles of wild birds and other unseen animals. The air was cool and damp, smelling of bark, summer flowers, and wet soil.

Since time immemorial, the Black Forest had been one of the hidden treasures of the region. Shimmering lakes, most notable among them being the fabled Windeen Lake, lay deep within its forested reaches. Deeper still, where the canopy was so dense as to block out even wind and sunlight, it was said that there dwelled hidden communes of immortal elves and other wondrous magical creatures, untouched by civilization. Forming part of the natural boundary between the lands of Shilage and Voslage, the forest had long captured the wonder and imagination of both peoples, spawning centuries' worth of songs, tales, expeditions, and many, many royal retreats.

Today, however, the quiet tranquility of the forest had been rudely despoiled by the thunderous gargling of huge combustion engines. Ugly clouds of dense black smoke, mixed with unburnt fuel and soot, were billowing into the forest, chasing away the wildlife. Even the trees, ancient and mysterious as they were, seemed to be shirking away from the polluting miasma coming from the armored dinosaurs parked on the narrow dirt road as they growled and revved into life. They stank, of oil and noxious fumes and metal. An intoxicating stench, like the smell of wine or blood.

It was the stench of war.

The armored battlegroup, representing the mailed fist of the reborn Voslagian Army, had formed up and were waiting only for the order to mobilize.

Brigadier-General Valentin Jurge stood in the cupola of his T-84BM Oplot-M command tank, which had the Voslagian word for "Vendetta" stenciled on the gun barrel. He was still wearing the mottled field overalls of his former Erusean Army service, along with set of bulky headphones that patched him into the radio net. He was waiting in quiet anticipation for a signal from Shilage.

The grumbling column sat idle on the little dirt road - more of a trail, really - like hounds chomping at the bit. Everything and everyone had been formed up and ready to go for the past six hours, and the tension was palpable.

Some ways out in front was the advance guard; a lone BMP-3 amphibious fighting vehicle, "Six-Niner", crewed by reconnaissance troops. Next in line were the battlegroup's heavy hitters; there was General Jurge's personal T-84, "Vendetta", followed by three T-72M2 battle tanks labeled similarly; "Drumroll", "Iron Maiden", and "Warboss".

Behind the tanks were twelve BTR-90 APCs, carrying three Voslagian infantry platoons between them. Also present were eight supply trucks and a fuel tanker - collectively carrying just enough fuel, ammunition, and spare parts for a straight dash to Shilage Castle and about twenty minutes of heavy combat.

Jurge glanced up and down the column, surveying his troops one last time. He turned up his lip, somewhat dismayed. They were going to be traveling light, and fighting on even less. To start, traversing the Black Forest was not going to be easy. The trail was narrow and rough, which not only increased the risk of time delays, but also of breakdown and wear and tear. They also had no air defense or artillery support.

Compounding the problem was the fact that practically all of their equipment had been inherited, bartered, scavenged, or - most commonly - outright stolen from ex-Erusean Army stocks leftover from the Lighthouse War. At such times, quality control had been a secondary concern at best, if at all.

But this was all that the new Voslagian government could spare, even for a historical ally and trusted neighbor. And, as inconvenient as the Black Forest trail was, it was still the shortest and most discrete route across the Shilage-Voslage frontier - as soon as they cleared it, they would practically be within spitting distance of Shilage Castle itself.

More importantly, Prince Laszlo had already shared plenty of intelligence on the strength and disposition of General Resource's forces; primarily consisting of lightly-armed security troops and vehicles, better suited for gunning down dissidents and harassing elderly pensioners than for actual combat. Were it not for their powerful fighter planes, Jurge would probably have simply intervened outright.

But all of that depended on factors outside of his control, and he did not like that.

The radio crackled, «Ice King, this is Seraphin.» said the fizzled voice of Jakob Vizsla, Captain of the Shilage House Guard. Slaps of garbled gunfire could be heard in the background. «We've destroyed several GR fighter planes while they were taking off. I don't know what their mission was, but they won't be launching again anytime soon. Move in! Repeat, move in!»

Finally.

'Seraphin, Ice King.' General Jurge replied curtly. 'Roger, moving in. Out.'

Feeling a sudden sense of purpose, Jurge fastened his eyepatch and cleared his throat. He'd fought in combat before, but only under the banner of Erusea - masters to whom he felt no real loyalty. Today was different. Today was going to be the first fighting operation of the new Voslagian Army... no, it was more than that. It was more than a mere battle; it was an initiation. A declaration of independence, a statement that Voslage was capable and ready to assert her power, and fight for her own interests once more. It was a celebration of their rebirth as a credible, sovereign nation for all the world to see.

And Valentin Jurge would be leading the charge.

It is time for my countrymen to achieve what our forefathers could not. he willed inwardly. What we all should have done, a long time ago.

Taking in a deep breath, he switched radio channels and gave the order;

'Driver, advance!' he bellowed. 'All callsigns, this is Ice King. Commence the operation!'

At his command, the forest became alive with the roars of engines and heavy metal. One by one, the tanks set off, kicking up clouds of dust and bigger clouds of exhaust fumes as they lurched and trundled into motion.

For the first time since the Erusean takeover, Voslagian troops were crossing the border into Shilage.

---

GRDF Shilage Airbase
(Formerly known as the Queen Madeleine Celcia Marie Claire Fantine Alianor d'Aquitaine D'Elise Tunnel, Trans-Erusea Highway)
Shilage Castle, Western Usea
6 June 2020

«Wit, this is Seraphin. We've destroyed several GR fighter planes while they were taking off. I don't know what their mission was, but they won't be launching again anytime soon. Move in! Repeat, move in!»

'Understood.'

The Sol Team were in darkness, standing before a locked door with a single, strobing light. A carefully-planned route through the Catacombs had brought them here - not without some initial fear of a fatal wrong-turn, albeit one that was eventually dispelled by the din of muffled gunfire that told them they were in the right place.

Wit looked at his companions, one last time. Their bodies were ready, and so were their faces. They were the same expressions they had all worn during the first tumultuous days of the Disorder, when they made their decision to break away from the Erusean forces. Today, the stakes were higher than ever. And after months of agonized, helpless simmering, they were now finally ready to take the fight to General Resource.

Leading the group, Wit unholstered his sidearm. He paused for a moment, quickly reflecting on the chain of events that had brought them all to this moment; starting from the day Mihaly had brought them to Shilage to set up and establish themselves. Then came the day the Osean snowbirds - led by the bastard Three Strikes – had ruined everything, destroyed all of their military forces, leaving the nation weak and vulnerable to attack. Three Strikes had even incapacitated Mihaly himself, forcing Wit to take over command, just in time to briefly join forces against the greater threat posed by Doctor Schroeder's hideous experiments; the Ravens. It was a difficult, harrowing ordeal that had very nearly cost Wit his life.

Then they had returned to Shilage to resume their restoration, fighting and defending it against all comers with the meager forces they had left. Just when they were at their weakest, General Resource swept in to the rescue, but it was clear right from the beginning that their intentions were anything but good.

However, as distasteful as it made him feel, Wit understood that had been useless to resist. With their depleted forces facing General Resource's overwhelming power, no one could possibly have stopped them from twisting and perverting the country as they did. All they could do was watch, helplessly, from the sidelines. Even now, the plan devised by Prince Laszlo was a huge gamble, relying on a perfect storm of factors to be carried out at all.

But it was the only plan they had. It was their first, best, and possibly last chance to excise General Resource's corrupting influence from the land. Whatever was going to happen, would happen here. This was going to be a battlefield unlike any other. All the Sol Squadron could do now was to play their parts, and dearly hope against hope itself that they were the better actors.

Wit took a deep breath.

Then he kicked the door open.

At once, the darkness of the Catacombs gave way to the dim lights of a maintenance shaft. Just as they did so, two GRDF security troops ran straight past the team, apparently too panicked and fixated on Captain Vizsla's diversion to notice. Sidearms drawn, the Sol Team stepped out after them.

Just in time for a third guard to stumble across the group.

'Holy crap!' he exclaimed, fumbling for his weapon.

Wit dropped him immediately with a shot to the face.

They moved on.

Wit led the way, sidearm leveled, with Seymour at his side. Hermann and Roald covered the sides and rear between themselves. They knew where they were, and where they had to go. This, after all, was once their base too. And it was going to be again.

A draft of sweet morning air, laced with the intoxicating stench of blood and burning lead, was wafting through the hallway.

The Sol Team stormed down the next long corridor, with narrow walls adorned with more chemical lights and cable-tied wiring. They were halfway through when they an unarmed GR technician came running the other way, his face contorted with fear. No doubt he was looking for a safe place to hide from the chaos outside. It took him a moment to register the four armed fighter pilots blocking his path, and he staggered to a halt. Immediately realizing what was going on, he raised his hands.

Wit shot him too, and the Sol Team moved on again.

Reaching the end of the corridor, they rounded a corner and found themselves in a long, cavernous tunnel - they were in the hangars.

The sounds of battle were immense. Every gunshot and rocket impact sent a thunderous echo reverberating through the enclosed tunnel space that stung the ears. Rifle fire was storming in from the outside. Panicked, wavering GRDF security troops were curled up on the ground, or behind whatever cover they could find. Only occasionally did some pop up to fire back, and more often than not ended up getting shot for the trouble.

One of the guards, weeping tears of fear and frustration, happened to glance over at the corner from where the Sol Team were emerging.

'C-contact! Contact left, from the walls!' he shrieked, pointing and gibbering like a madman.

'With all due respect, sir,' the guard beside him asked. 'Are you high?'

'No, I'm not high! They're really comin' out the walls!'

Their delayed reaction gave the Sol Team precious few seconds to start running.

But it was only a few seconds. Before long, shots were zinging and spattering off the tunnel walls around them as they ran, sending debris and dust flickering into their faces as they ran.

They were poor shots, and only one scored.

A stray bullet smacked into the small of Roald's back. Gurgling, retching, the Voslagian faceplanted straight into the hard ground, dropping his weapon as he fell.

'Roald! Roald!' Hermann cried out as he stopped and rushed back. With a surge of adrenaline, he grabbed Roald's limp body by the collar with one hand. With his pistol in the other - pausing twice to snap-fire from the hip – he dragged his wounded comrade behind a parked cargo loader.

Wit and Seymour fell in beside him, with Seymour keeping up his fire while Wit and Hermann tended to Roald.

'Roald, brother!' Wit asked. 'Are you alright?'

'I'll live...' Roald breathed. 'By Mihaly's bowels it hurts, but I'll live...!'

'Understood.' Wit said, although the growing pool of dark, almost black blood bubbling out of the ragged hole in his comrade's tunic suggested otherwise. He set down his weapon and rolled up his sleeves, preparing to administer what little first-aid he knew.

Hermann, however, stopped him.

'Wit, you have to go.' he said. 'This might be your only chance! You and Seymour, get to your planes!'

Initially confused, Wit took a full second to process what was being demanded of him. 'What? No!' he protested. 'We're not leaving you here!'

'You're going to have to.' Hermann said grimly. 'Roald and I can take care of ourselves. But you have to go!'

'No, I just can't do that!' Wit pressed. 'I'll take you in my plane's backseat if I have to! Because we're a team! We have to stick together!'

Sensing a drop in their assailant's firepower, the General Resource security troops consolidated their positions and began to counter-attack, creeping forward and returning fire with slow but increasing confidence. Their ranks were padded up by fresh reinforcements spilling in from multiple side entrances, strafing and advancing as they put down something that could almost have passed for suppressive fire.

'What's the matter, Colonel Sanders? Chicken?!' one of them taunted.

«All your base are belong to us.» said another, with half a face replaced by augmetics, speaking in a droning, yet somewhat intimidating monotone. «You have no chance to survive make your time. Ha. Ha. Ha.»

Still huddled behind the cargo loader, Seymour poked out his torso and emptied his clip - dropping another hostile - before being forced back around as another burst of return fire came lashing in. Bullets spanked and clattered, throwing specks of dust, metal, and occasional spark.

'Damn!' he spat, tense and shaking slightly, nearly fumbling as he reloaded.

Hermann turned back towards Wit. 'There's no time, sir! We'll only slow you down!'

'I can't let you two throw your lives away!' Wit persisted. 'Not after everything we've been through! We've lost enough people already.'

'Let them have our lives...!' Roald gasped, before coughing up blood, staining his tunic. 'As long as our nation stands... the people will carry on!'

'But, our planes... They're so close! Look, they're just around the corner! You know this!' Wit said, trying to be reassuring but inwardly feeling more like he was grasping at straws. 'Think about Voslage's restoration... It is within our grasp!

'Then go and take it, for all of us!' Hermann yelled, shoving his flight lead almost hard enough to knock him over. 'But you must go to the Space Elevator, and finish this fight! We'll cover your escape, but you have to go now! Or none of us will be around to see our country's restoration!'

'Right or wrong, make a decision, Wit!' Seymour added, ducking reflexively as another bullet whizzed by his face.

A few thoughts whirled through Wit's mind. He wondered why nothing ever went according to plan. He wondered why the very universe itself seemed to be actively conspiring against his people, so determined it was to rob them of a free and independent homeland. Sometimes it would dangle it in front of their faces, tantalizingly close, but always kept just barely out of reach, by vile agents like the Eruseans, Three Strikes and the Osean Snowbirds... and now General Resource and their corporate cronies.

Most of all, Wit could not understand why he, of all the billions of people on this Mihaly-forsaken planet, had to choose between the one chance to save his country at the cost of two of his most dear companions, or standing together with them in glorious - but, ultimately futile - death.

It was an ugly dichotomy - just like the one from Doctor Schroeder, that had started them all on the path of resistance against General Resource to begin with. Both outcomes were completely unacceptable, with differing but no less atrocious consequences.

But they were the only choices that Wit had. It was his duty as a man, and as a leader, to make a decision, stick with it, and own the consequences.

'... Dammit!' he snarled. He picked up his weapon again. 'Seymour, get ready to move! We're going!'

With a pained expression, Seymour nodded gravely.

'Forgive us, Hermann.' he said.

'They expect at least one of us in the wreckage, brother.' Hermann replied, keeping a stiff upper lip. 'Better that it be us than you.'

'Go!' gurgled Roald, his face already pale. 'Get out of here...!'

With a final, sparing glance at his two companions, Wit left them. He ran, sprinted, without looking back. A whole mess of emotions were swirling around his head - shame, anger, frustration, grief, desperation, regret, sadness... He kept running, not even daring to look back. He couldn't. He didn't feel worthy to face anyone anymore. Not the enemy, not his own brothers. Not even himself.

But he had to keep going. And Seymour was hot on his heels.

---

GR Avure Business Resort and Spa
Shilage Castle Town, Western Usea
6 June 2020

It was the sirens that woke him. It was only daybreak, but already the morning calm had been stained by plumes of slick, black smoke rising from the castle. Crackles of gunfire were echoing in the distance.

Gilbert Park, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of General Resource Ltd., awoke in his glittering, luxury suite with an undignified, snuffling groan. His face was puffy and ragged from a lack of sleep. He'd spent most of the previous night drinking and stressing about the Space Elevator, and it seemed that trend was going to continue.

Slowly, groggily, he sat up in his bed. He reached for his phone and summoned his executive assistant.

'Joo Dee, get up here.' he mumbled.

Promptly, she appeared, flanked by a pair of local attendants. She was well-dressed, wearing a neat miniskirt and high heels, with dark, shoulder-length hair.

'At your service, Mr Park.' Joo Dee said, bowing her head slightly.

'Give...' Gilbert mumbled, smacking his head in another unsuccessful attempt to shake off the stabbing hangover.

'Sir?'

'... Give them to...' He trailed off again, this time because his attention drawn to another ripple of explosions from the window outside.

He looked out across the town's streets. They were packed; masses of Shilagian civilians were shuffling down the stonebricked roads and avenues of the town like a migratory herd, all headed towards what could only have been preplanned evacuation points. They were moving with the orderly swiftness of a population completely desensitized to war and conflict. They had heard the gunfire and the explosions, and the Shilagian people knew in their bones that, if they could hear it, they were already too close.

Meanwhile, General Resource security personnel were milling around and shivering at each keen of the alarm klaxons, perhaps caught off-guard while on guard duty. Gilbert saw a team of GRDF guards attempt to reassert their authority by trying to control and direct the flow of civilians. But their efforts, awkward and half-assed, were duly ignored by the citizenry.

Gilbert's eyes then shifted across the river, towards the great hill of Castle Shilage. Plumes of smoke were rising from its base. There were more bursts of gunfire, punctuated by barked shouts and the occasional strangled shriek, muted and distorted by the morning breeze.

His mind was still reeling from last night's hangover. But, even so, it did not take him long to figure out what was going on.

He shot a sudden, withering glare at Joo Dee, making her flinch reflexively. He drew in a huge breath through his oily nostrils, and then, like a whale blowing its top, noisily expelled it in a mighty gust of overnight spittle and rancid breath.

'Are we blind?! Deploy the garrison!'

---

GRDF Shilage Airbase
(Formerly known as the Queen Madeleine Celcia Marie Claire Fantine Alianor d'Aquitaine D'Elise Tunnel, Trans-Erusea Highway)
Shilage Castle, Western Usea
6 June 2020

Captain Vizsla, still hunkered behind the wreck of the upturned Sakerfalcon, felt his heart race. He glimpsed movement in the cobbled road on the opposite side, leading into the town. GRDF reinforcements were en route - the full strength of the corporate garrison would be upon them soon. Coming to a similar realization, the Shilage House Guardsmen around him began to shift their fire.

It was worse than it sounded. As was so often the case, the Shilagians were already outnumbered. And they were low on ammo. Their superior skill and experience would only count for so much in the face of overwhelming numbers. For every round Vizsla and his guardsmen pumped downrange, ten more came lancing back, however badly-aimed, and it was only a matter time before they began to find their targets.

As if to highlight the point, the man beside him - Guardsman Toth - abruptly walloped over, dead before he even hit the ground. Another one - Corporal Puskas - jerked back, shot in the neck, gurgling and fumbling weakly as he bled out.

Two vehicles were approaching from the town - a pair of GRDF Sentinel walkers were making a charge for the tunnels. Behind them, at their heels, were a staggered line of yet more GRDF security troops, firing their MP5s and MP7s from the hip as they advanced.

'Damn!' Vizsla spat. 'Incoming vehicles, find cover!'

The Sentinels came on, striding into the fray like giant terror birds. Their mechanical legs clanked and jolted with every step. Their angular, open-topped head-sections swiveled around, sensor bulbs scanning for targets, and fired their 20mm chin guns in a hideous, punching chorus.

The incoming cannon fire quickly mulched three Shilage House Guardsmen into scarlet mist, and flayed a fourth into a messy string of still-conscious organs.

Swearing, spitting, Vizsla tried several shots at the exposed heads of the Sentinel pilots, but couldn't draw a good bead - the walking, ambling motion of the walkers made them hard to track, much less aim for a precise spot. He had seen these technological terrors move before, but he had never actually faced them in battle until now.

Then one of them turned at him.

Captain Vizsla rolled, dodging death by mere millimeters. The 20mm rounds tore up the ground where he'd just been, and shredded the wrecked Sakerfalcon he'd been crouched behind; a shell ruptured a fuel tank, sparking a fire that very quickly become a roiling inferno.

His ears were pounding. He was bleeding from a scalp wound, and the left side of his body was riddled with shrapnel. All he could hear was the horrible pounding of the autocannon, and the plumes of dirt being thrown up from each impact. Picking himself up, he managed to hobble to cover behind a familiar cargo tug, its driver dead at the wheel.

Fighting through the pain, he watched another of his men - Guardsman Varga - take aim at the Sentinels with an LRAC F1 rocket launcher. But before he could get a shot off, another scythe of autocannon fire severed his body at the waist. Varga's torso fell straight down, and so did his weapon.

Expending the last round of his last magazine, Vizsla dropped his Stgw-57 and bolted for the launcher.

'Look, we got a runner!' shouted one of the GRDF troopers. 'Shoot him! Shoot him now, you lumbering mountains!'

'Fire your guns~, it's time to run~! Blow me away~!'

It was as though every gun in the universe was suddenly trained on him. Torrents of weapons fire slashed and cut around him, with one of them punching through his right leg. A fresh adrenaline surge kept him going for a few precious seconds, before his leg gave out, sending him into a confused tumble just five feet from Varga's bloodied remains. Another bullet punched him in the same leg as he reached for the launcher, roaring in terrible pain as crawled towards the fallen launcher.

He'd made it. Somehow, he'd made it. After prying Varga's stiff, lifeless fingers off the LRAC's grips, Vizsla wrapped his bloodied arms around the weapon, and then clumsily rolled into a nearby ditch. Globs of soil peppered his wounds, making them sting as they touched his raw nerves. But he had retrieved the precious LRAC! And right now, that was all he cared about.

With grim, pain-fueled determination, Vizsla dragged his wounded, screaming body back up to the top the ditch, and hoisted the launcher onto his one good shoulder. Focusing, breathing, he peered through the sights and took aim at the Sentinels. By now, they had blocked the tunnel entrance. So long as they were in position, Vizsla's men were not getting in - and the Sol Squadron wouldn't be coming out. Everything that they had planned, risked, staked, fought, and died for, will have been for nothing.

He made a final check that the backblast was clear. Then, adjusting his aim for the last time, he fired.

There was a loud, whooshing bang as the 89mm shaped-charged warhead punched through the air, trailing smoke. The rocket seemed to hang in the air as the rocket reached its peak trajectory and began to curve back down, barreling straight towards the Sentinels...

...

... And missed entirely. The wayward rocket trailed past the walkers, instead hurtling into one of the tunnels and blowing out a section of the wall. Stone debris scattered like broken glass, shredding a nearby GRDF security guard with several sharp, concussive impacts.

The Sentinels were still in position. But for some reason, they were no longer firing. They were shambling around, trying to cover the tunnel entrances as well as the GRDF security troops. They had plenty of opportunity to shoot, but they didn't.

Then the realization hit him; the Sentinels had run out of ammunition.

Thinking quickly, Vizsla dropped the empty launcher. With his one good arm, he unclipped a grenade. He then kicked his brutalized body to its feet and began to run out into the open again, this time towards the Sentinels.

Small-arms fire lashed and punched around him. A bullet punched into Vizsla's good shoulder, and another ripped across his upper back. He staggered, stumbled, and fell forward, landing just short of one of the Sentinels.

Summoning every last iota of strength his body had left, and nearly delirious from blood loss by this point, he pulled the pin and hurled the grenade up into the air. Just as he released it, another bullet smacked him in the chest, and he was thrown onto his back.

He could only watch as the grenade flew up in a graceful arc. It knocked and bounced across the open-topped cage canopy of the Sentinel like a pinball, before finally tumbling into the cockpit with a satisfying clatter.

Then it detonated; there was a sharp, brutal snapping noise, and a fountain of sparks and body parts erupted from the top of the Sentinel's exposed head section. Knocked off balance, the driverless Sentinel tottered and stumbled, careening about in a rough half-circle, before finally collapsing in a crumpled, smoldering heap on the ground.

Blood was dribbling from his mouth, but Vizsla was satisfied. Right from the beginning, he'd been prepared to sell his life dear, and knew full well that the uniform he wore so proudly into battle could easily become his burial attire. He'd woken up that day prepared to kill, and prepared to be killed in turn.

The other Sentinel loomed over him ominously, clearly intent on squashing him like a bug.

Slowly, painfully, Vizsla dragged himself to his feet. If he was going to die today, then better that he die standing. Perhaps his only regret in life was not being able to live to see his homeland reclaim its freedom for a second time. If only he'd been able to get that other damned Sentinel...

There was a roar, and a series of concussive bangs. The second Sentinel's head section blew apart in a shower of flaming debris, bursting like an overripe melon.

Two Su-30M2 Flanker-F2s burst out from the tunnel at full takeoff speed, blowing out huge gusts of dust, debris, and people in the wake of their jetwash. Vizsla saw them, bearing the roundels of the Voslagian Air Force on their wings, as they shrieked off the ground and into the sky, leaving behind contrails that dispersed and faded away behind them.

Vizsla smiled. The Sol Squadron was airborne, their jobs done. Their growling rumbles gradually became more and more distant as they turned southward. Towards the Space Elevator, no doubt.

Good luck, Sol Squadron... he thought.

Robbed of their vehicle support, the GRDF guards' firepower seemed to waver. Then it broke off completely, as they collectively broke ranks and doubled back down the road into the town.

Encouraged by the sight of turning backs, the surviving Shilage House Guardsmen surged forward. Rifles shouldered, they gunned down the fleeing hostiles whole teams at a time, but held back from outright pursuit.

'Look, sir!' shouted a young Guardswoman, named Lengyel. One of her arms had been blown off into a messy stump, but she still held a pistol in her other hand, and was using it to gesture at something behind them. 'Tanks!'

They turned around to look, and immediately began to cheer.

A BMP-3 fighting vehicle in Voslagian Army markings was crawling up the highway behind them, knocking sparks out of the wreckage as it crunched along. Its main gun, a 100mm rifled piece with a coaxial autocannon, was held in the raised position. The numbers "6" and "9" were printed on its side. The vehicle's commander, an ugly, broad-faced man in filthy fatigues, was waving back, grinning like an idiot.

Coming up behind was a line of Voslagian Army battle tanks, their arrival heralded by swirling columns of dust and exhaust gases. Barely discernible behind them were the shapes of BTR-90 APCs and supply trucks.

Captain Vizsla joined in the cheering. The great struggle had been won; the Sol Team was airborne, and General Resource's advanced fighter base was no more. Without their planes, the General Resource Defense Force had nothing. And now that the Voslagian Army had arrived, the battle was surely as good as over.

The biggest, meanest looking tank of the bunch - a T-84 Oplot-M - turned sideways and stopped, leaving open the way for the rest of the column.

Brigadier-General Valentin Jurge appeared from the turret, his face and overalls caked over with oil and soot.

Still in great pain, Vizsla staggered over on his one good leg. He tried to salute, but none of his shoulders or the arms attached to them had the strength to follow through.

'Good to see you, General.' he managed.

'Captain Vizsla.' General Jurge acknowledged bluntly. 'Report!'

'Yes sir, of course. The fighter base is ours, and the Sol Squadron managed to take off. We took heavy casualties, but we also managed to drive off General Resource's forces. They're falling back into the town.'

Jurge nodded, keeping a level expression. 'And the castle? What of Prince Laszlo?'

'Undefended.' Vizsla admitted. 'I committed every last one of my Guardsmen to taking this base.'

'Then you shall have more.' Jurge said, tapping onto his headphones. 'Bullfinch Two, this is Ice King. Your objective has changed: break off and secure the castle. No one gets in or out without my authorization.'

«Copy that, Ice King. Bullfinch Two switching objective to secure Shilage Castle. Out.»

At once, four of the Voslagian BTR-90s turned left off the highway and, gunning their engines full throttle, began to charge up the ancient hill leading to the castle. Vizsla watched them, feeling a strange sense of unease, but said nothing.

'Now,' Jurge said, turning back to Captain Vizsla. 'Tell me where I can find Gilbert Park.'

Vizsla looked at him quizzically. 'What are you planning?'

'Gilbert Park has been co-ordinating General Resource's activities here, has he not? I want his head on a pole.'

There was something in the Voslagian General's tone that made Captain Vizsla feel somewhat uncomfortable. But he was too weak, too tired, and too wounded to make an issue of it - and for that matter, so were his men.

So he told him.

---

GR Avure Business Resort and Spa
Shilage Castle Town, Western Usea
6 June 2020

Half of the town's population had already disappeared underground. They'd filed into old wartime bomb shelters with the practiced ease and resigned acceptance that no amount of drilling could possibly have prepared them for... or otherwise had simply departed for greener and less kinetic pastures.

Meanwhile, the GRDF troops in the streets had were still milling around like headless chickens; paralyzed with indecision, unable and unwilling to react to the situation. Their communications channels had been swamped by a flurry of disbelief, denial, and confused screaming, all at once,

«Who are they? What's going on?! No one said anything about an invasion on this quarter's budget forecast!»

«Apparently, our public-sector competitors have forcibly downsized our employee resourcing at the fighter base! They were majorly disruptive to our core competencies, being early-adopters of new growth targets, while we were working in silos...»

«We need an agile, results-driven business strategy that leverages industry best practices to improve our value-add and move the needle back to achieving our growth KPIs for this quarter, or we'll all be audited before the next performance review!»

«Alright, let's take that one offline. Cindy, set up a conference call for Monday morning please...»

All the while, the sounds of gunfire were drawing closer...

The hotel suite was in pandemonium. Aides, attendants, and even cleaners were emptying the rooms into sacks, bags, and rucks. All semblance of order and professionalism had long since vanished, taken over by a spree of panicked looting.

'Everything here has value!'

'Even the toilet paper?'

'Especially the toilet paper!'

None of them even so much as noticed when Gilbert Park, dressed and caffeinated, strode through them. He walked with a controlled sense of purpose, knowing exactly where he wanted to go. Joo Dee pottered along behind him, shooting nervous glances out of every window she passed by.

'Um, Mr Park? Sir?' she asked, her own professional veneer beginning to waver under the weight of the situation. 'Where are we going?'

Gilbert answered her question with an order.

'Get my transport ready.' he growled through clenched teeth. 'We're ditching this one-horse town!'

---

GRDF Shilage Airbase
(Formerly known as the Queen Madeleine Celcia Marie Claire Fantine Alianor d'Aquitaine D'Elise Tunnel, Trans-Erusea Highway)
Shilage Castle, Western Usea
6 June 2020

The Voslagian Army battlegroup had formed up at the base of Shilage Castle. Under the command of General Jurge and briefly consolidating after a long journey, they were now poised to begin pushing into the town. Ideally, Jurge would have preferred to surround the area, but he had neither the numbers, supplies, or firepower for an extended siege. His best option was to sweep in, hunt down Gilbert Park, and hopefully eliminate him before he got away. Doing so would not simply end General Resource's grip on Shilage, but also potentially bring down the whole damn corporation itself.

Jurge licked his lips. He wasn't kidding when he'd said he wanted Gilbert Park's head on a stick. If he could just win that prize today, his glorious place in the history books would be assured...

Only a handful of Captain Vizsla's Royal Shilage Guard would be accompanying them, for most of their number - including Captain Vizsla himself - had been grievously wounded earlier in the fighting. The ones who could stand or hold a gun had been tasked with guarding the soft-skinned supply trucks that the Voslagians had brought with them.

Jurge had been quietly impressed with their skill and tenacity. Unlike most of his countrymen, he'd looked down on the Shilagian people, viewing them as pacifistic weaklings, pliant and unwilling to lift a finger in their own defense. That, after all, was precisely how the Eruseans had taken them over, all those years ago.

But today was different. All around him, the signs of their drive and tenacity were evident; they had cleansed the GRDF fighter base almost by themselves. It had come with great cost, and the battle was far from over - but it was a sign to General Jurge that they were willing to fight and bleed to uphold their sovereignty, and give their lives if need be.

Jurge respected that strength of will. And if they were smart, so would General Resource.

'Gilbert Park spends most of his time in a five-star hotel.' Vizsla said, blanching briefly as he received a shot of morphine. He was lying in a field tent, being tended to by a Voslagian medic. His body was bloodied and battered, but his spirit was clearly still willing. 'Just off Main Street; the GR Avure Spa and Resort.'

Gravure... what a name.

'You're sure of this?' Jurge asked.

Vizsla made a small movement that almost looked like a shrug. 'It's one of only a few places in this town with actual plumbing. And a helopad.'

Jurge nodded slowly.

'... Good enough.' he said. 'We'll head there then.'

'Good luck, General.'

Responding only with a curt nod, Jurge departed and headed back toward his command tank, the T-84 bearing the name "Vendetta". Clambering into the turret, he slipped on his headphones and patched into the radio net, keeping a map of the town on his knees.

The rest of the battlegroup; the T-72M2 battle tanks "Drumroll", "Iron Maiden", and "Warboss" had assembled on the road, and the remaining BTR-90s, having dismounted their infantry squads, spread out behind them. The BMP-3 "Six-Niner" had taken up a commanding position on a ridge overlooking the town, on the slope leading up to Shilage Castle - it was an exposed position, but one that in turn offered wide fields of fire.

Everything was ready. Reasonably convinced that most of the civilians had cleared out, General Jurge finally gave the order to move in.

---

Shilage Castle Town, Western Usea
6 June 2020

Six-Niner dug-in and blurted out a staccato flurry of rapid fire from its co-axial 30mm gun. Intermittent tracers drizzled over the town, punching out windows and shredding old stone buildings, and whipping up clouds of debris and shattered masonry that engulfed whole blocks in a dusty, stony haze.

Beneath the fire of the covering barrage, the Voslagian tanks advanced in a column - with Vendetta up front and the infantry teams screening their flanks. Hostile small-arms fire, sporadic and disorganized, spat and crackled at them as they advanced.

With his one and only good eye, Jurge peered through the computerized sights aboard the Vendetta, its sensors penetrating through the dust layer.

'Gunner, target; walker.' he said. 'Dead ahead, one hundred meters. Sabot.'

'On target!' shouted his gunner; Sergeant Kovacs.

The T-84 was still grinding forward, crunching over debris and chunks of masonry. Most of the shocks were absorbed by the vehicle's torsion-bar suspension, and in conjunction with the main gun's gyro stabilizers, meant Kovacs only had to make minimal corrections as the tank advanced.

'Sabot ready!'

'Fire!'

'Firing!' Gripping the firing console with both hands, Kovacs firmly thumbed the trigger.

Jurge felt a sharp click in his headphones, making his eardrums reflexively contract ahead of the mighty shock of the KBA-3 125mm smoothbore gun's firing action. The whole, massive, forty-six tonne T-84 battle tank shuddered and bucked like a bronco as the armor-piercing fin-stabilized sabot round was whipped through the 48-caliber barrel at over five times the speed of sound, in a tremendous blast that seemed to cut open the very air itself. The gun barrel sprang back with a resounding clang, and ejected the ringing, smoking shell case.

In flight, the shell's outer sabot peeled away. The finned penetrator struck a GRDF Sentinel straight on, bursting through its lightweight armor plate in a shower of sparks. The round burst out through the other side, taking with it a powerful and highly-directional jet of pulpy red liquid that had once been its pilot.

The three T-72s following behind began to fire as well. Bright, searing gouts of gas-flame flared and flashed from their 2A46M guns, tearing whole facades off the old, fragile buildings that crushed scores of GRDF security personnel under their falling impacts.

General Jurge felt a great rush, a thrill. It had been a long time since he'd seen battle. After the war, there had been precious few chances to exercise his power, and he was going to make this one count. The roaring of engines, the shudders of metal and machinery, the shouts of men in battle, the intoxicating stench of oil and fumes and powder... Being back in the thick of it now, it was almost cathartic.

'Hit!' Jurge barked, sucking the gun fumes into his nostrils, making his head feel pleasantly fuzzy, tickling his brain like a hit of a very different sort. 'Load HEAT!'

Complying, Kovacs worked the gun controls. Below the turret, a rotating servo arm selected a projectile from a circular carousel. Flexing, the servo arm brought the shell up into the carriage – taking the accompanying propellant charge with it – and level with the main gun. A mechanical plunger pushed the shell smoothly into the breech, after which a powerful block snapped it shut like a guillotine.

'On target, HEAT Ready!' Kovacs called.

'Fire!' Jurge yelled.

'Firing!'

There was another click in Jurge's headphones, and Vendetta's main gun fired again. Flurries of discharge smoke steamed back from the muzzle, blowing gently against the hull and turret front in little white streams.

By now, the GRDF garrison had become painfully aware of the hardened Voslagian spears thrusting into their vulnerable nether regions.

They launched out in force; a pack of four Sentinel walkers, plus all of the security troopers they could find on short notice. They surged into the street, with the Sentinels bounding forward with speed enough for even the veteran tank crews to have trouble lining up their shots, especially at close range.

A searchlight-equipped H-9 helicopter fluttered in to support them, its door gunners blazing away with pintle-mounted miniguns.

An Arkan missile fired from Six-Niner streaked across the town like a comet, swatting down the charging H-9. It fell straight down, tumbling off the roof of a building and exploding - putting a swift, fiery end to its role in the occupation of Shilage.

But the Sentinels were still coming.

'Incoming! Incoming!' General Jurge radioed. 'Spread out!'

The four charging Sentinels plunged into the phalanx of tanks, firing away with their 20mm autocannons at point-blank range. They were leaping and bounding off their powerful legs, occasionally trampling unfortunate infantry underfoot.

General Jurge felt the impacts patter against the armor like heavy rain. He knew their shots were far too weak to penetrate, and he knew that the Sentinel drivers knew that too. They were just there to slow them down and distract them, while their own troops advanced - and while Gilbert Park made his escape.

Not this time.

'Gunner, hostile infantry.' he said, spotting GRDF fireteams creeping forward in the dust haze through the T-84's optics. 'One o'clock, fifty meters, ruins. Bring the coax around and engage.'

'On target, coax ready! Firing!'

The Sentinels were still dancing around the other tanks, deftly sidestepping their way around the swinging and wildly-blasting return fire from the Voslagian armor. The Iron Maiden scored a lucky shot, destroying one of the walkers.

The crew of Warboss tried a shot of their own, but missed. Frustrated, Warboss' commander emerged from the turret and grabbed the handles of the pintle-mounted machine gun. He managed to snap off about a dozen rounds before being pulped by a burst of autocannon fire for his trouble.

Meanwhile, another pair of Sentinels were running circles around Drumroll, shooting out her tracks with a concentrated barrage of 20mm gunfire.

Jurge ordered Sergeant Kovacs to finish hosing down another GRDF fireteam, before turning his attention to the Sentinels. Using the Vendetta's remote-controlled NSV heavy machine gun, Jurge zeroed in on the two walkers surrounding Drumroll, incongruously reminded of the video games that his late son used to play. He fired, striking one of the walkers on the actuator controlling its right leg - throwing its balance and making it tumble straight down, killing the pilot from the sheer impact concussion.

The other Sentinel reacted by making a charge at the Vendetta... only to be smacked down by a ramming attack from Iron Maiden. The Iron Maiden kept going, using its sheer mass to crush the grounded walker like a soda can. The walker's pilot tried to scramble out of the cockpit, but caught his leg on a safety harness. He died screaming as forty tonnes of ex-Erusean steel pasted him and his erstwhile walker into a messy blot on the cobbled road.

The last surviving Sentinel, out of ammunition, hesitated for a moment - giving just enough of an opening for one of the Voslagian infantry squads to down it with an Eryx missile.

There was little time to rest, however. Before Jurge could reassess the situation, the Iron Maiden suddenly started to retreat rapidly, slamming full reverse. A huge impact tore into her frontal hull, touching off the ammunition storage carousel below the turret in a catastrophic detonation, blowing out flaming chips of armor and hurling the turret some fifty feet into the air like a demented children's toy.

Coming down the road was a huge mechanical beetle, which would later be identified as a Doodlebug superheavy walking tank. It dwarfed the Voslagian tanks; triple both their length and height, and built like a thundering war elephant. It had six mechanical legs, thick like tree-trunks, plunging down and quaking the very earth with each lumbering, plodding step. A single heavy cannon, fitted to an unmanned turret, sat atop its massive back. It was advancing, taking up the whole street, slow and inevitable like the apocalypse.

Infantry-launched Eryx missiles and a shot from the Drumroll - still immobilized - smacked into the frontal hull of the beast, but achieved nothing more than blemishing the paintwork.

«What the hell is that thing?!» radioed Drumroll's commander, babbling the words out as though he'd seen the Grim Reaper himself. «Load sabot! Go for the legs - it might be our only chance of stopping 'em!»

Drumroll whipped out another shot, striking the shoulder of one of the looming Doodlebug's six legs. And again, it failed even to slow it down.

The superheavy walker's main cannon fired, a deafening roar that rocked the earth and kicked up small clouds of white dust off the surrounding surfaces like disturbed flour.

The shot was aimed at Drumroll. It fell short, striking the ground below it, but had been packed with so much explosive force that it threw the tank over and upside down, fatally injuring all three crew members as they tumbled around the interior like pinballs.

'That thing is indestructible!' Kovacs exclaimed.

'I would never have believed General Resource could build something like this.' Jurge said, beads of sweat forming on his brow for the first time since the war. 'Driver, full reverse! Pull back!'

Gearboxes and differentials grinding, Vendetta tilted forward as its reverse gear was engaged, drivetrain whining as though in disappointment.

The Doodlebug kept coming. It was a slow thing, shambling along at little more than walking pace, but its sheer, inexorable presence almost made it seem like a terrifying force of nature. Infantry teams scattered out of the way. The T-72s Iron Maiden and Drumroll had both been knocked out, while Warboss had simply disappeared.

The Vendetta was alone.

Jurge had no illusions about his chances in a head-on fight. But at least by falling back, he could lure it into striking range of the surviving infantry teams, who would at least be able to outflank and outmaneuver the lumbering monstrosity at close range.

'Load sabot!' he shouted. Again, the autoloader mechanism flexed and cranked its work.

'On target, sabot ready!' Kovacs shouted back, sounding remarkably calm under the circumstances.

'Fire!'

'Firing now!'

The Vendetta fired again. As expected, the fin-stabilized sabot round had little real effect, shattering harmlessly against the Doodlebug's armor plate in a flurry of sparks.

Answering the challenge, the Doodlebug's heavy cannon swung into aim. For a single, paralyzing second, Jurge found himself staring right down its deadly barrel - and the fact that he was viewing through the optics somehow made it even worse.

Then it fired. Brigadier-General Valentin Jurge saw the muzzle flash, and then everything turned to fire.

---

Feeling himself being dragged across the ground, Jurge came to. He could see his beloved T-84, his Vendetta, lying on the street; sundered, hollowed, and wreathed in flame. The entire front end had been shorn off, armor panels peeled and charred like a third-degree burn. He felt himself being drawn further and further away from it. He didn't want that. He tried to struggle and resist, but his body would not obey.

It was then that he became vaguely aware of someone talking to him.

'...-ir? Sir!' said the voice of Sergeant Kovacs, his loyal gunner. He had Jurge by the shoulders, and was pulling him away from the burning tank. 'Hang in there, sir! I've got you!'

Regaining his senses, Jurge stirred. 'Where's Medici?' he asked, looking around for his driver.

Kovacs shook his head ruefully.

Damn...

Gunfire was ringing out in the distance; further down the road, the Voslagian infantry squads were locked in vicious combats with fresh GRDF fireteams. They were losing - the GRDF forces still had that damned Doodlebug, which was still raining destruction on the Voslagian lines. General Jurge watched as its main cannon vaporized an entire infantry squad, right along with their supporting BTR-90. One moment they were there, the next they weren't - as though they never existed, like an Erusean censor.

Damn it all... he rued. His battlegroup, his mission, his quest for glory, his chance at redeeming the honor of Voslage... everything was falling apart before his eyes. I... can't let it end like this...!

The Doodlebug's turret traversed. It had spotted him again.

'I think this is it, sir.' Sergeant Kovacs said, somberly.

Jurge swore internally. If he knew he was going to die this way, he would have preferred burning to death in the bowels of his tank. At least there would be some glory in being seen to have died in battle with his war machine, like the crews of Iron Maiden and Drumroll had, fighting to their last breath. But not like this. Not caught helpless and pathetic, like a wounded rat in the middle of the street.

'Damn you, General Resource!' he roared, more furious that he'd been cheated out of what he felt was an honorable death than at death itself.

Legs flexing, servos whirring, the heavy Doodlebug steadied itself, ready to fire.

There was a sound like shattering stone and falling concrete. Suddenly, the building directly adjacent to the Doodlebug burst open like a water balloon, throwing out fragments of cobble and twisted framework onto the street.

The Warboss had reappeared, its engine howling like a wolf at full moon as it barrelled out of the collapsing building, and crashed straight into the side of the massive Doodlebug with a shriek of scraping metal. Its drive and tracks were still running, rattling like a printing press, as the tank pushed with all of its thousand-horsepowered strength.

The monstrous six-legged walker stumbled, its aim thrown off. It had been knocked off balance, but did not topple. Lifting up its middle-right leg, it stamped it down on the top of Warboss' turret with the strength of an industrial piledriver, pressing it down with such force that it began to push the upstart tank into the ground. Warboss' weld joints began to buckle, even triggering its protective ERA blocks, popping them like giant firecrackers under the compression.

Warboss' weld joints began to buckle, even triggering its protective ERA blocks, popping them like giant firecrackers under the compression.

In response, the Warboss' turret elevated - pointing the main gun directly at the Doodlebug's underside - and fired, point-blank.

There was a brief pause. Then the Doodlebug buckled. It faltered, suddenly losing power and crashing straight down to the ground with the all the grace and subtlety of a falling brick, crushing what remained of the Warboss beneath its gargantuan mass. The superheavy walker did not explode, but fire began gusting through its innards, hissing and churning like a pressure cooker. It continued to immolate from the inside for a more few seconds, before finally building up enough pressure to blow out several access hatches.

The Doodlebug had been the centerpiece and last hope of General Resource's defensive strategy. Without it, the morale and coherence of their forces seemed to melt away. Their fireteams fell back in a desperate, scrabbling retreat.

Sensing what could be their last opportunity, General Jurge rose to his feet. Drawing his sidearm, he staggered forward, walking slowly as he regained his bearings. Then he began to run.

The pendulum of fate had swung back in his favor. And damned if he was going to let it get away this time.

---

GR Avure Business Resort and Spa
Shilage Castle Town, Western Usea
6 June 2020

The V-280 tiltrotor was already powered up and waiting on the roof of the penthouse. The wind was sharp and strong at this height, distorting the warbles of the still-keening air raid sirens.

Gilbert Park walked with Joo Dee across the platform, the latter still visibly panting after climbing several flights of stairs in succession while carrying both of their briefcases, particulars, and luggage.

The Valor's crew chief stepped out and helped her load the cargo into the aircraft, while Gilbert Park walked to the edge, surveying the town for one last time.

The sounds of gunfire were drawing closer. Towers of smoke and dust rose before him, covering the whole town in a miasma of ruin and decay. Patches of flame were burning in several buildings. Rumbling, ringing explosions rippled across whole blocks, throwing up plumes of yet more dust, their echoes blurred and overlapping as the sound waves bounced between the buildings. Tracer rounds stabbed out like sparking embers. Occasionally, someone would yell - distant and inaudible.

Gilbert didn't need to check the tactical updates on his phone to see what was going on. The Shilagians had risen up, conjured an army seemingly from thin air, and turned on him. And they had succeeded; the General Resource Defense Force had been caught completely flat-footed - the fighter base had been the first target, throwing the rest of the security garrison into disarray as they fought a rapidly-losing battle to keep control of the city.

There was no nice way of putting it; Shilage had been lost.

All my work, all of my investments, the time and effort I had put into this place... he reflected. All of it ruined! Ruined by these contemptible, scheming little people!

Taking a breath, he turned back and headed back towards the waiting tiltrotor.

This is not the end. he told himself. I have other investments. One day, I will rise again. And I will remember who my enemies are!

With a quiet, restrained anger, he boarded the Valor and buckled himself into a passenger's harness. The crew chief approached him,

'Where to, sir? The Space Elevator?'

Gilbert shook his head, a touch forcefully. 'Not there you idiot! No, set a course...' he looked up and thought about it for a moment. Then, as if hitting upon an idea, he smiled and said,

'Take me to Expo City.'

'Yes, sir.'

The engines powered into life, and the V-280 lifted off into the sky.

---

Brigadier-General Valentin Jurge burst onto the rooftop, flanked by a squad of infantry soldiers. He saw the V-280, its tiltrotors already rotating into the horizontal flight position, and beginning to power away into the distance.

He fired. He fired again and again, hoping that he could at least slow down his prize's escape.

The V-280 kept flying, and Jurge swore loud and long.

The battle was over.

---

Shilage Castle, Western Usea
6 June 2020

Smoke and fire were still rising from the town, but at least the gunfire had stopped. The last GRDF security troops had been rounded up and taken prisoner by the victorious Voslagian forces. One by one, the air raid sirens were deactivated, casting an eerie calm over the ruined streets.

The jeep slewed to a halt at the main gate of Shilage Castle. Pulling up the handbrake, Sergeant Kovacs jumped down from the driver's side and helped his commander and superior officer, Brigadier-General Valentin Jurge, as he stepped out. He had to be delicate; Jurge's right arm was in a cast, broken when his tank exploded during the battle, which had also left another scar - so fresh that a scab was only just beginning to form - running across his eyepatched face.

General Jurge tried to straighten up as Kovacs helped walk him towards the castle's front gate. They passed a column of GRDF prisoners, their weapons confiscated and hands held firmly at the backs of their heads. Many of them were shaking, weeping, or both. Glancing them over, Jurge shook his head contemptuously. Without their advanced technology, they were nothing; just a spineless, pale, pathetic lot. And now they were being treated as such.

The Voslagian soldiers and Shilagian guardsmen on duty waved them through the gate leading to the castle entrance; a columned portico, still majestic, even after being covered in a layer of dust from the battle. Standing beneath its ancient stone arches were Prince Laszlo, wearing a full princely dress uniform, and Captain Vizsla, wearing mostly bandages.

Walking up, Jurge came to attention. Vizsla reciprocated, while Prince Laszlo gave a soulful bow.

'Valentin.' Laszlo said. 'You appear to have sustained injuries.'

'It takes more than that to put me down.' Jurge replied.

'Quite so. You always were a tough old bastard.'

Jurge smiled wanly. 'Not always.'

'You have performed a great service to our nation, but at great cost.' Laszlo said, keeping his tone level and restrained. It was obvious that he was not pleased that half of the town had been trashed, a fact only narrowly counterbalanced by the fact that the grip of General Resource had been broken.

'I will explain the situation to my President, and assume full responsibility for all damages.' Jurgen said judiciously. 'This was not the outcome I intended for.' he added truthfully. 'Allow us to assist you in restoration and reconstruction... and we'll call it even.'

Laszlo nodded sagely. 'That will suffice.'

'Then I shall prepare to take my leave.' Jurge said. 'We have already overstayed our welcome. But you have my word: we will return, and help your nation back to its feet.'

'Go in peace, dearest Valentin.' said Laszlo, putting his best, most diplomatic "hurry up and leave already!" look. 'I wish you well.'

Jurge bid a curt farewell of his own, before finally turning to leave.

The cost had been great, but the struggle had been won: Shilage was once again free. And now, as before, it would embark on the long road to recovery.

---

North of Selatapura
Gunther Peninsula, Southwestern Usea
6 June 2020

It was the late morning.

The two Su-30M2s speared through the open sky, supercruising at a steady speed just above mach 1. Turbulent air currents whipped and flapped against their airframes, but they held firm to their heading; due southeast.

Wit glanced down at his instrument panel. The flight to the Space Elevator, and the trouble he was expecting to find there, meant that fuel management was paramount. By his reckoning, he calculated that they would have just enough fuel for about twenty minutes of combat - just enough time to make their presence felt, before they'd have to bug out and dash for home.

He sighed. Everything that had been done, all of the plotting, scheming, promises made and coordinating with Prince Laslzo, Captain Vizsla, and General Jurge. The desperate race through the highway tunnel. The luckless General Resource employees they had dispatched along the way, and the people they left behind - Hermann, Roald, even Mihaly himself... all of that had built up just so that he and Seymour could get into the air today, so they could go to the Space Elevator, and fight for a chance to save the restoration of his homeland.

They had endured so much, and sacrificed greatly. His thoughts drifted back to Hermann and Roald, both of whom had willingly offered their lives for the cause. They were prepared to pay the ultimate price for what they believed in. The restoration of Voslage needed that commitment. Wit himself needed it - he desperately hoped that, when his time came, that he could at least go out with even half the resolve his companions had shown.

And their work still wasn't finished. Even if Prince Laszlo and the others had succeeded in ejecting General Resource from Shilage, their corporate forces would still be out there, lying in wait for their next opportunity to strike.

Wit swallowed. With his own five senses, he had witnessed the full extent of their corrupting influence; their terrible power and what they were capable of doing with that power. So long as that abominable corporation still existed, none of them would be able to sleep peacefully.

But equally, so long as people like the Sol Squadron were willing to risk their lives and stand the line, their homelands would have a chance at seeing another day. For after all, to be independent was to be free, and to be free demanded a terrible price - one that was only payable in the lives and blood of those willing to fight for it.

Wit smiled. In truth, he had known all along that the Sol Squadron's ultimate goal - the restoration of the twin nations of Shilage and Voslage - had already been achieved. They had been restored from the moment they broke away from Erusean control at the end of the last war. General Resource had very nearly claimed Shilage for itself, but now their chains had been broken too.

The restoration was already complete. Their struggle was won - but it would only remain so if they continued to fight to uphold that restoration.

He took a breath. They still had a promise to fulfil. One final mission, before they could return home again...

The majestic skyline of Selatapura gradually rose over the horizon. This was not the first time they had been here. Even from here, they could see missile trails and aerial explosions, from renewed fighting that had broken out at the Space Elevator. Their flight systems picked up IFF squawks from a dizzying variety of transponder codes; Osean, IUN, General Resource, and even the EASA - the same pattern used in Doctor Schroeder's flight tests.

Wit smiled again. Everyone was here. While the Sol Squadron had been closing their affairs in Shilage, another war had broken out, seeming in the blink of an eye, and now they were going to plunge straight into the thick of it.

The battle that lay ahead of them was going to be fast and brutal. But Wit, his mind clear and free of all bitterness and anger, was already fired up.

'Seymour, we're coming up on the Space Elevator.' he radioed, speaking coolly and confidently. 'Let's do this.'

«Copy that. I'll follow your lead.»

Nothing more to hold us back, then, he thought, as he gunned the throttle.

End of Side Story

---

Assault Record #5 - Seymour
Aircraft: Su-30M2 Flanker-F2
Rank: Major
Date of Birth: Unknown
Unit: 68th Experimental Squadron "Sol", Voslagian Air Force
Nationality: Voslagian (formerly Erusean)
Dossier:
A skilled pilot of Voslagian heritage. Like his companion Wit, he joined the Erusean Air Force believing that he could restore his homeland's independence through outstanding military service. Eventually joining the elite Sol Squadron, he flew escort for the legendary Mihaly A. Shilage. Towards the end of the conflict, his team saw an opportunity to break away from Erusea and restore their Voslagian homeland.

Although normally quiet and reserved, Seymour has proven to be a capable second-in-command, and is no less committed to upholding his homeland's independence than his more outspoken and passionate counterpart in Wit.

---

Author's Notes:
▪ The Sol Squadron was last seen in Chapter TWO, where General Resource starts pouring money into Shilage. Since then, they have not been happy...
▪ This side chapter originally started as a minor segment in Chapter FIVE (which is still being written...), but quickly ballooned into its own chapter, parallel to the main story
▪ This side chapter also incorporates many ideas that I originally cooked up for another story that would have featured a young Mihaly fighting against the Erusean takeover (among others...) in '70s Strangereal