AUTHOR'S NOTE:

So I'm starting to run out of ideas for this story, some suggestions would be nice. As of right now, I'm starting to focus more on my other as of yet unpubished work about the stories that are being told here (i.e. Treblinka, the Religious Wars, and the Alliance War)

But before I start taking suggestions, I want to have some outlines:

1. no sex. Seriously, good stories don't need a 13 year old's fantasies to be a good story, read The Count of Monte Cristo.

2. no implausible technology. What I've loved about science fiction is that there's always a kernel of real science in all the dreams. So unless you can somehow persuade me that anti-matter can be used as a powering device, it ain't happening.

3. Forget Europe, the Orlov ain't going back and this chapter will keep it from going back. I never liked how all discussions of world wars have always ended up in Europe, that continent is so 20th century.

Right, now that that's out of the way, let's pick up where we left off.

--

The second Yastreb touched down on the landing deck of Orlov, and the medics immediately swarmed around it like vultures around a dead carcass. Fortunately, nobody was hurt seriously enough to warrant immediate attention. The members of Epsilon squad jumped down from the transport. Their leader, an old, battle-hardened Sergeant Major, looked to Ivan and asked.

"Sergeant Ivan Morzhovy?"

"Sir!" Ivan replied.

"I'm Sergeant Major Nikolai Pyotrovich Avatomat, leader of Epsilon," the old man said. "The commander informed me that my engineer is transferred to your squad."

"Sir yes sir," Ivan replied.

"Watch that medic of yours," Avatomat warned. "These two would be more than willing to kill each other on sight if you leave them alone."

"Understood sir," Ivan replied.

"Viktor!" Avatomat yelled, "You're now part of Alpha squad, get your shit together and move."

The engineer scowled as he strode toward Ivan, disdain clearly showing in his eyes.

"Is there a problem?" Ivan asked, unintimidated by the man's size and attitude.

"That suka of yours," Viktor grunted.

"That 'suka' might save your life one day," Ivan stared into the man's dark eyes, "I wouldn't piss her off if I were you."

Viktor grunted and walked past Ivan.

"So what do you think?" Avatomat asked.

"Man seems like a loose cannon," Ivan remarked.

"He is," Avatomat replied, "but I'll be damnned to find a better engineer. He could decode those silos faster than a starving man goes through a Christmas goose. Damned quick at fixing broken equipments too."

"Hopefully he won't cause too much trouble," Ivan said.

"He won't," Avatomat replied. "You just need to break him in. Once he accepts that he can't be transferred back and that he's part of your squad, everything should run smoothly."

"Yeah, I guess," Ivan muttered.

"Say, kid," Avatomat said, "you look familiar. Have I met you before?"

"You've met me at the silo down there," Ivan replied.

"No, no," Avatomat shook his head. "You look familiar. Tell me where you fought."

"In this war or during the Alliance War?" Ivan asked.

"You fought in the Alliance War?" an astonished Avatomat asked.

"Yep, first found combat at Treblinka," Ivan replied proudly.

"Under Sokolov?" Avatomat asked.

"Yeah!" Ivan exclaimed. "Were you also under him?"
"Damned straight I was," Avatomat laughed. "Poor bastard had me loading the shells to the forefront artillery piece. I thought I was cooked."

"I wasn't so lucky," Ivan started laughing too, "I got stuck setting up artillery points for the third row back up in the second peak. That was the first area hit by those damned East Asian rounds."

"You were on that second hill?" Avatomat asked, "Damn kid, you're a tough cookie."

"I remember the first row of artillery got smeared pretty quick too," Ivan said. "How'd you get out?"

"Remember Pavlichenko?" Avatomat asked.

"Yeah," Ivan replied, "Nice kid, brilliant. Too bad he didn't make it."

"Not a lot of us did," Avatomat said darkly. "Poor kid, he would've made a lieutenant by now, with his brains."

"Sokolov didn't make it either," Ivan reminisced. "Shame, he survived the Religious Wars, but not Treblinka."

"He would've loved this," Avatomat wiped a tear from his eye. "Who'd imagined back then that we'd have these flying fortresses and walking tanks?"

"The Americans and the Chinese," Ivan said. "The African Campaign was a bloody one. Half a million men died the first day of fighting at Tunis, and it was all because of their damned Jove Airships. And Treblinka wasn't easy either, those damned Type-2's practically walked all over us. I still don't know how the hell we won that one."

"Damned glad I didn't fight in Africa back then," Avatomat breathed, "who'd thought I'm here now."

"Be more glad that our orbital strikes managed to clear their EFL defense system." Ivan said. "Shit, I remember the reports. Three Jove Airships went down before they had a chance. That didn't stop the American advance though."

"Those were the days," Avatomat looked up at the sky tinted red by the Titan's shields. "Don't you feel our weapons have become less sophisticated than before?"

"Maybe it's a good thing," Ivan laughed. "Hell, I rather face a Riesig than a Type-2. I still remember ducking behind the barracks while one of those things tore up half the camp."

"We nearly lost that battle," Avatomat said. "It wasn't until those twenty armies in Europe were brought back to the Motherland that we were able to push back. And by then, we'd already lost our grip on Treblinka as well as half of Chelyabinks. And even then, it was a bloody march toward Beijing."

"They threw everything at us," Ivan shook his head as he remembered firing at what seemed like an endless wall of coming troops. "By the time we got to Beijing, I heard that there were only a hundred of us left from the Fourth Army."

"It's lucky the EAF went along with the formation of this alliance." Avatomat sighed, "Otherwise, we'd be dead."

"You know," Ivan said, "I don't think our weapons got less sophisticated, I think we just gotten used to things."

"I think so too comrade," Avatomat lit up a cigarette.

"You should probably rest," Ivan said, "I'll be in my quarters, come visit if you want."

"Ha," Avatomat laughed, "We could trade stories."

"No kidding," Ivan said as he left.

The encounter with the old soldier shook Ivan's nerves. He had tried for the past ten years to put Treblinka out of his memory. But every attempt had failed. He periodically woke up in the middle of the night, screaming. Sometimes he saw the hydrogen tipped artillery shells landing around the mountain with deadly precision. Sometimes he saw Vassily Martov's body being trampled by the foot of a Type-2. Sometimes he saw the East Asian tanks bearing down on the helpless infantrymen who ran out of ammo and ran out of luck. Sometimes he saw the pitiable conditions in the medical tent, where men lay dying, begging for water that wasn't there. He still remembered the smell of death, a rotten stench mixed with the acrid smell of gunpowder. He was still lost in his nightmarish memories when he entered the quarters, only to be hit by the blast of a stun grenade.

"What the hell is going on?" Ivan roared.

"Well, Tanya and Viktor are getting to know each other," Heliang replied sheepishly. "Not exactly the way I imagined, but at least they're talking."

"Yelling would be more accurate," Ivan shook his head, trying to get rid of the disorienting effect of the stun grenade.

"Well, at least the make up sex would be great," Heliang laughed.

"I think it'll turn out like a mantis mating ritual," Ivan replied, "The female bites the head off the male while they're going at it and eats him while he unloads."

"Care to wager?" Heliang asked.

"Not too interested," Ivan shook his head.

"Aw c'mon," Heliang pleaded, "there's nothing to do until Zhang Yi gets back from the infirmary, might as well make a wager."

"Nah, I'm going to piss one of them off, and both of them scare me," Ivan rasied his hands in mock surrender.

"Ivan, you used to be more fun," Heliang sighed as he sat down to watch Tanya and Viktor proceed to raising their fists.

"Yeah well, times have changed," Ivan said as he pulled out his sidearm and fired two rounds into the ceiling. "Alright, break it up!"

"Tell this nikulturny bastard to stop insulting me first," Tanya snarled.

"Tell this suka to stop harping on me about that," Viktor said.

"How about both of you stop pulling this kind of shit?" Ivan asked, his pistol still pointed in their general direction.

Neither of them said a word, a loaded pistol was always something to be feared.

"Alright, next time I hear the two of you are going at it," Ivan warned, "I'm going to shoot you both. Understood?"

"Yes sir," both soldiers hung their heads.

"Good, now get some rest," Ivan turned on his heels and left their quarters.

The next few days saw very little open altercation between Tanya and Viktor, but the two found brilliant ways to harrass each other. Tanya found out the hard way that her toothpaste replaced with superglue, an incident that surprised the irate medics, most of whom had expected this from gamma squad. A day later, Viktor found his repair kit filled with broken equipments and a note that told him how to find his tools. Then immediately after that, Tanya's medical hub's password was changed. It wasn't until Viktor found that his NetBAT ID had been tampered with to show him as an EU soldier that the two decided to call it quits.

In the time it took for Alpha squad to get their acts together, the initial phases of Operation Motherland has been carried out successfully. Most of North Africa now firmly belongs in the hands of the Pan Asian Coalition. Now it was time for the second phase of the operation: storming the major food and energy sources. Shuhia Taiba and the Sidi power plant had been finally taken, but that still left three major food production facilities deep within the Saharan jungle. As the Orlov and her sister Titans trudged south, the PAC now began relocating its massive populations toward the equatorial regions. The European theatre has been completely abandoned due to lack of use for the land. It took the Coalition three years to realize that. By the time the last PAC forces left from Europe, the nuclear weapons that man had long feared since the twentieth century razed the bloodsoaked continent.

And now, Africa, the cradle of human civilization, beckons her children to return.